


One Winter More

by F_S



Series: If their so bloody ‘ancient’ these so called ‘instincts’ then lets rumble [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alpha Victor, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, M/M, No mpreg, Omega Yuuri, Viktor with a K, a bit of dubcon if I'm honest, chalcolithic era, miscommunications, slight magical world, yuuri lives in a literal cave
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2018-12-24 23:07:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 52,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12022974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/F_S/pseuds/F_S
Summary: Winter is coming in fast. He’s stored plenty of kills in preparation, but it never hurts to get more. While searching for tracks in the snow, Viktor comes across a crack in the mountainside. Too small for him, but just enough for a leaner animal to slide through… and he can smell it, deep inside, the most mouth-watering of smells…An omega is nesting. On his territory.





	1. The Start Of Winter

**Author's Note:**

> This is an exercise in playing with all these 'instincts' and 'dynamics' i have been reading in stories recently (I have literally only been exposed to the A/B/O literary world for a month and a bit, and it has both been extremely excellent and extremely bad...) Liabilities are taken with world building in this piece. Now, enjoy yourselves!

-  
начало зимы (the start of winter)  
-

  
Viktor leaves before dawn. Sunlight lasts for only a few hours these days – it’s foolish to wait around for it. In the dark he jogs, both to cover ground and keep warm. Makkachin pads in his wake, the brown wolf-dog eager for a hunt. Viktor doesn’t plan for any hunting. With the heavy snows… Viktor doesn’t hunt. All he needs to do is get to the animals who died in the night before the wolves do.  
  
Or the wolverines.  
  
Or the ghouls.  
  
Or a griffin who’s late to migrate south.  
  
Hmmm.  
  
He knows the elk heard was in this part of the forest two days ago. It hasn’t snowed since then. Frosted over, sure, but not snowed. Viktor follows the tracks of the twenty or so animals, between pine trees silent in their hibernation. Silent like the bears and the birds and the streams and the land.  
Everything silent and still, except for the crunching of his steps, and the panting of Makkachin.  
  
Viktor doesn’t like winter. Deep down, he fears winter. It’s too cold.  
  
It’s too lonely.  
  
Through spring, summer and autumn, he’s able to ignore the fact that’s it’s just him out here. Just him for a thousand miles. He’ll explore. Harvest the plant life and watch the animals, and in general surrogate all human emotions onto Makkachin. Maybe he should get another dog? Twice the dogs means twice the company.  
  
But in winter. He stays in his home. He stays and stays and stays. The winds howl and the snows pile up. And he stays and stays and stays.  
And no one ever comes. Not Yakov, the old alpha who has territory to the west, not his mate Lilia, not Chris who wonders across these parts in the summer, not Mila who went east, not Georgi, not any travellers, not anyone. Nothing ever changes. He just stays.  
  
He hibernates, for all intents and purposes.  
  
He can’t even skate across the ice in winter. It’s too dark, and snow piles up over the surface. What a perfect metaphor for the state of his miserable soul. He can’t do anything in winter. Just prepare, and wait, and cry. Pine for someone to be there with him. But that part is just instinct, that last one, the pining. Stupid Alpha instincts that demand he find someone in summer, and claim them in autumn, and hold them through winter, and protect them as they birth his child in spring.  
  
Viktor grunts as the land steepens. The elk have gone upwards, seeking safety amongst the sheer boulders that crown this particular mountain. What are they, goats? He knows this mountain, it’s all exposed rock and gulley’s. The only grass is tough weeds hanging on for dear life in the cracks. Everything will be covered in a slippery layer of frost. It was stupid, dangerous, to come up here at this time of the year (which was why he never does).  
  
However… that leaves there being a good chance some of the elk have slipped and broken their legs on the rocks. Viktor pulls his many layers of fur closer, looks around for Makkachin, and starts to climb in earnest.  
  
Up high the winds howl and bite. When he peers up, he can see a thick misty cloud spilling over the summit. The sounds of elk calling to one another reach his ears, and Viktor follows it around, hopping very closely between boulders and testing each step before he trusts it with his full weight. He has to pull Makkachin up by the scruff of her neck sometimes. When her claws scramble for purchase but come away with nothing.  
  
The elk are huddled underneath a large flat rock that’s been proped up for millennium by a set of boulders. On one side is a large crevice, and on the other a slope full of slate that looks like it will all go sliding out from under the large animal’s hooves the second they step onto it.  
  
They’ve trapped themselves. The fools. Why did they even come up here? All he needs to do is jump down from where he is, shout ‘boo!’ and the herd will go fleeing in either dangerous direction. At least one will undoubtedly mortally injury themselves, and all that will be left for Viktor to do is end their misery and drag them home. Hmmmm. Actually, that could be quite exhausting. A tad beyond his strength. These are elk after all. Viktor carefully and slowly circles the herd, aiming to angle the stampede down the slippery slate slope, the less dangerous option of the two. The more left alive, the more that will breed in the spring, the more there will be to hunt next winter. Hm, yes. Solid reasoning. Smart.  
  
Makkachin is pacing and drooling at his side. Thankfully she is a good girl. Patient and obedient beyond measure. She coils up and waits for his command. Viktor puts his mittened hand out to grip her, a clear sign to stay. She almost whines. Almost.  
  
Viktor crouches and waits. Becoming as still as the rocks around him and observing the herd. None of them have antlers – not in the winter – but he can tell from where their muscle bulk falls and the manes around their necks that this is a bachelor herd, full of young alphas of both genders and beta stags. They snort and nuzzle the ground a bit, looking for grass to chew up. The majority of their fur is honey white now.  
  
The wind shifts and swirls around him, and then he smells it.  
  
Something different.  
  
Something cosy, tasty, comforting… alluring.  
  
The elk? Or has the wind carried this scent all the way off the lowlands? It smells like something delicious roasting over a fire’s coals, and your stretched out beside the pit on thick furs, warm and eyes closed, only the scent to focus on as it envelopes you, like familiar hands coming either side of your face, and the musky, salty presence of another’s skin as you bury your face between they’re shoulder blades, and they keen and writhe beneath you as you hold them in place and–  
  
He blinks rapidly and tries to revaluate the mountain top. This is… this is…  
  
He looks to Makkachin, wondering if his hunting companion has more of a clue about this scent than him. She’s still the same, anxiously waiting to go somewhere. Now that he looks closer though... her eyes aren’t glued to the herd. No, they’re just a bit off centre, gazing over to the right, leaning against his hand heavily, her weight situated more to the right as well.  
  
The majority of the herd is facing the right as well. Huddled as far right as they can get, right to the very edge.  
  
A luring scent.  
  
Viktor blinks again, and feels a shiver as he realises, as the words form in his mind and some deep part of him reacts.  
  
_An omega is nesting here.  
_  
An omega. Has built their nest. In the depths of his territory.  
  
Suddenly, the wave of mysterious angry heat vanishes, replaced by chips of ice. He was a failure of an Alpha. Here was this… this perfect omega, going through all the trouble to nest down in the heart of his territory, and he hadn’t even _known they were here_.  
  
Winter was on the cusp of arriving, and he hadn’t even known! This poor little omega would have been curled up in their nest, waiting for him, and shivering and starving and probably dead before winter was over because Viktor was too weak of an Alpha to notice them, acknowledge them, bring them back to his den, keep them warm with his body and the insulated walls of his den - a den that he had been instinctual tending and adding to for seasons now for this very purpose!  
  
Viktor’s hand went over his mouth to hold back a pained whine.  
  
That explained the elk now. The scent of an omega’s nest drew in all types of animals, not just humans. Some ancient, base pheromone that nothing can resist. Viktor used to think it was a disadvantage, nothing like the usefulness of an alpha’s scent – a repellent to anything that wasn’t compatible, the strongest of which would have bears, let alone other Alpha’s, skirting around and putting miles between themselves and an occupied den.  
  
That was one of the reasons omega’s almost always joined an alpha in their den for winter. Because when an omega stayed in one place for too long, they’re nest becomes a literal chunk of bait, and while prey species coming to bask in the comforting pheromones were all well a good, predators found the scent of an omega literally delicious.  
  
Literally mouth-watering.   
  
Desperate wolves in winter and hungry bears in spring. Those were the main killer of omegas – right behind starvation and exposure.  
  
It was why even Christophe, an omega who detested the idea of a mate, finds a new alpha or beta to shack up with every winter through spring, without fail, because it was simply too dangerous alone.  
  
The elk had noticed the omega before he, the actual alpha who territory this was. He was worse than some scrawny herd of elk. _Oh god.  
_  
But there was still time. Scarce days, but days all the same, to fix this. He could… he could… kill one of these elk, yeah, and offer it, still warm and bleeding to the omega to demonstrate his hunting prowess. Then he could do a bit of begging for forgiveness, and offer to scent the nest to cover their pheromones, offer to protect them, offer to provide, offer his den, offer anything and everything because they smell heavenly and he hasn’t even seen them but he wants to treat them right and…  
  
Viktor makes a decision. He drops his hand from Makkachin, pulls out one of the three spears tied to his back, and leaps down. The elk startle but don’t react as fast and scared as he expected. They must be in some sort of weird relaxed haze from being so close to an omega’s nest. Fuck, the omega’s nest must be close. How close? Just behind these rocks? Under them?  
  
Viktor feels bubbles of that warm anger again, as he thinks about where they could be. Somewhere within reach is an omega, all snuggled up, in whatever sort of miserable nest they’ve managed to form out of the rocks and thorns of this mountain’s bleak landscape. He was a failure. His alpha was a failure. His territory was a failure. Everything about this was like a dream wrapped up in layers of bizarrely psycho-specific nightmares.  
  
Viktor lunges and starts to run. He gets inexplicably close, thanks to the herd being slow and trapped in. The ones closest are trying to run but the animals behind them aren’t moving. They’re trapping themselves. He gets close enough, quickly enough, that he likes the chances of a throw.  
  
The spear buries into the long, wide neck of a big elk. One he instinctively picked out because it was impressive. It screams and chokes as it leaps back, and that is when the herd finally breaks and runs. It tries to follow, but trips to its knees. Makkachin leaps and bites into its neck, pulling it down further.  
Viktor unsheathes his blade and takes the animal’s life quickly, pulling Makkachin back so she doesn’t get her ribs kicked in by the stag’s dying thrashes. Once it’s eyes finally glass over, he goes over to the edge and looks down the slope. The last of the herd is just disappearing down into the tree line, but there is … two, lying in varying states of injury. A young one, just over a year old, whimpering on her back, and an older one further down, crushed up against a rock like it hit it face first at high speed.  
  
Which it likely did.  
  
The yearling will be easier to carry home, Viktor muses. The other one he can bury somewhere under the snow. An emergency stash for him and…. for the omega.  
He trundles down the slope, to end the life of the young one. He doesn’t both with the elderly one – it’s clearly had its skull pulverized. Viktor than stands up, a bloody blade clasped in one hand, and sniffs the air.  
  
He follows it back up. He follows it around, and under. Follows, follows, around and around.   
  
He gives up and follows Makkachin.  
  
Makkachin drops down the other side of some boulders than make her look like an ant, and disappears between two of them. Viktor lands softly and shuffles along, eyes darting around in confusion as he waits for his dog’s head to pop back up.  
  
She doesn’t.  
  
He crouches down where he last saw her, and runs his hands over the rock there. He breaths deep and the smell hits him, not only the strong scent of a nest, but the lingering scent on the edges of this very rock he’s touching. Built up over time from the omega brushing up against them. Viktor angles himself better and notices there is a gap between the rocks. A small crack. Only the smallest and leanest could squirm their way through – only the most flexible.  
  
Deep inside, he can smell them. Almost feel them. They’re in there. Some part of him wants to start clawing at the rock, to dig his way inside. Instead he clutches at the edges and takes a shuddering, calming breath.  
  
It sort of helps. It sort of doesn’t. Cause now his lungs are full of the omega’s scent, and his body burns.  
  
He tries to squeeze in. This way, then that way. He tries to look for a different entrance, but there isn’t. By the time he’s about to collapse in a pitiful puddle of rejected alpha, he’s back near the big elk he speared and – oh, that’s right! He can take it to them!  
  
It’s four times bigger than him, so by the time he’s half-carried, half-dragged it to the that little gap in the rocks, the sun is on its way down. Viktor tries to call out, to stick his head through the gap and wait for whatever sweet voice will drift back with a response. Words die in his throat. He just can’t. The omega’s scent has changed. No longer relaxed and inviting, but nervous – almost declining.  
  
It was time to go. The plan had been to sit there and charm them until the omega invited him into their nest, but even if the omega invited him, he couldn’t exactly get _in_. Camping all exposed on this mountain through the night, pinning pitifully outside this gap in the rocks, was a pretty quick and miserable way to die. So why were his instincts demanding he do that? Stupid instincts.  
  
Viktor sighs and straightens. He yanks his mittens off quickly so he can rub his wrists all over the surface of the rocks, and spreads his scent out into the air while fussing over the dead elk, trying to arrange it just so, so that when the omega finally pokes their head out it will look perfect, and obvious, and so impressive they won’t be able to resist Viktor when he comes back tomorrow…  
  
Hmmm, yes, tomorrow. That’s a good idea. Something unravels inside him once the decision is made to return. He decides to leave one of his own spears outside the cave as well. A hand-made, well-crafted gift anyone could appreciated. That Viktor hoped the omega would appreciate.  
  
Viktor takes a few steps away before he realises something. Where’s Makkachin? He peers down into the gap again and feels a tiny bit more at ease that at least his hunting hound got to go deeper and maybe reach the omega. Maybe offer some company. Some protection. Tell them without doubt there is someone close by, searching for them. Viktor whistles, the sound echoing around the rocks.  
  
“Makkachin! I’m going home now!” He waits a minute, until the scuttle of claws comes racing along and Makkachin pops back out from the gap. She barks happily at him and Viktor feels a flash of warmth again as he scratches behind her ear. Makkachin means so much to him, and the fact that she’s coming back looking so happy and pleased, is such a big sign of approval in his eyes.  
  
A thought occurs to him, and he leans into Makkachin. Puts his nose against her fur and just… searches.  
  
There it is. The omega’s personal scent. Now that he’s identified it, it’s everywhere. All over Makkachin. She must have found them then. They must have patted her, held her even. It’s… it’s…  
  
Viktor buries his face deeper, threading his fingers through Makkachin’s thick fur, he closes his eyes and just breathes.  
  
Spicy and… and lush. Crisp like the air over the ice and smoky like rich meat simmering in its skin…  
  
Male, not young or old, but in his prime, healthy and well looked after. Doing fine on his own. Not claimed. No dependent young attached. Alone and doing fine. Strong.  
Viktor is frozen there. Face buried in Makkachin’s shoulder. It’s like something has just been sparked inside him. Some little flame, catching onto straw and engulfing him in a blinding matter of seconds. Up until this moment he only knew they were a particularly nice omega, he didn’t know age or primary gender or their personal scent… and he wasn’t really expecting this. He expected a female, for some reason, and that would have been fine. He would have still provided and protected them, but he doesn’t really desire females as such. Or they could have been a newly presented child, thirteen, fourteen, and he would have taken them home and utterly mothered them through the winter and spring.  
  
And the smell of them. _Him._ The layers of his personal scent, so perfect and so damn divine he just couldn’t – Viktor doesn’t think he’s smelt anyone so good before. It reminds him of when he and Chris used to fuck, and how Chris was his ideal mate on the surface, but the omega’s personal scent made him want to sneeze whenever he got a mouthful of it. All petals and pollen.  
  
This is nothing like that.  
  
Viktor walks home in a daze. The young elk he’s dragging feels weightless as his mind drifts off and away. When he gets to his den, he sheds his spears and boots without really registering it. He collapses in his tent, not bothering with the fire, still too hot and sweaty from bringing the elk home. Makkachin curls up above him, and the omega’s fading scent starts to fill the empty, lonely, air of his den. He’s too far gone to really think deeply about his actions. He just nuzzles into Makkachin and yanks his layers of furs open, a hand tunneling down to where he’s aching, and takes himself in his hand. He comes fast and sweet, with a needy huff as his toes curl and hips jerk, and then a disappointed growl when he opens his eyes and sees no one.  
  
Viktor takes that moment to acknowledge he is well and truly fucked, and if this omega doesn’t become his, well, he will probably just up and die.  
  
Viktor sets out before dawn once again. This time with a bundle of furs and blankets roped together and slung over his shoulder. On his way he collects dropped branches ideal for firewood, and carries them in his arms.  
  
If it wasn’t for the elk and the spear, he wouldn’t have found the gap in the rocks again. He crouches down and pushes the furs through the well-hidden gap, one by one. When that’s done he piles the fire wood up neatly by the entrance, then sits down and waits. Makkachin waits by his side as well, but eventually he pushes her through the gap as well, and she doesn’t need much more encouraging to go scouring down into the, what, cave system?  
  
Viktor didn't know he had caves on his territory. They're so well hidden.  
  
An hour passes. It’s actually quite beautiful up here, in its own way. The skies are clear, so he has a great view down onto his territory. The many shimmering lakes that dot the forest, their icy surfaces sparkling in the weak sunlight, and the streams that flow between them. The fields nestled in valleys between small rocky mountains - similar to this one. The bay on the horizon that travelers sail into during the summer, and the alps far, far, behind which shelter a smattering of small villages.  
  
The same clouds of mist from yesterday cover the summit from view as he looks up higher. It’s likely just the effect of basking in the omega’s scent for hours, but Viktor is oddly at peace and content.  
  
It gets late. They still don’t come out. He calls Makkachin and they go home. Viktor’s instincts rise from their sleep like a bear prodded with a fire poker. He doesn’t touch himself anymore. Doesn’t desire it. Instead the drive has been replaced by a need to triplecheck the sturdiness of his den, and plan ways to improve it. He re-checks how much food he has stocked, starts carving a stack of new spears and sets about sharping his collection of blades with stubborn determination.  
  
The third day he can tell the depths of winter is finally upon his territory. Viktor wonders if it’s worth setting out, if the risks of being caught in a blizzard weigh up and… yes, it’s definitely worth it, because this will probably be the last time the weather is good enough for him to safety make the hours long journey to the omega’s nest for what might be two months.  
  
If he’s _lucky._  
  
Everything is just as untouched outside the gap as before. Viktor tries not to whimper pathetically as his emotions shatter all over the place. So he was that weak of an Alpha that the omega would rather nest through the winter snows alone? Viktor doesn’t like it, but he can’t say he blames them. They smell strong and healthy. Smell like they are doing better than Viktor, even.  
  
They probably don’t want any of his pitiful gifts. Don’t want his pitiful attention. Don’t want his pitiful children. That’s what this is. Don’t want to encourage his pinning because they don’t want him – he’s being rejected.  
  
Viktor curls up in a ball outside the gap, presses his face to the rock, and allows himself however long he needs to just sit and breathe through his silent tears. He leaves earlier than usual, and doesn’t allow Makkachin to go down the gap. He’s not keen on making this heartbreak worse than it already needs to be.  
  
On his walk home, he really does cry then. All super ugly and super loud. There is a brief moment of self-awareness where he wonders why he’s acting like this, but that is swallowed up in grief and pinning too quickly for him to mull it over.  
  
Tucked up in his den, the howls of a blizzard starting outside, fingers shaking too much to strike a fire, he realises what’s happening to him.  
  
The prolonged exposure to the nest along with the personal scent Makkachin was bringing home every evening has triggered something inside him. Started a chain-reaction of instincts, each one more powerful than the last. Rutting. _Hell,_ it probably started the second he caught a whiff, and everything between then and now has been pre-rut.  
  
So he spends the first week of winter-proper a monotonous, horny, aching, red-raw fool. Ruts generally aren’t too bad. It’s like his body has given him boosters for nearly everything. Senses, strength, desires, instincts. There is still a workable level of rationality and awareness for a rutting Alpha, though all thought process can easily be pushed aside at a moment’s notice if his instincts were to be triggered, say, if that omega ever emerged from the mountain and came to him. He would promptly loose it then, and descend into horrible horny beast. He’s not sure if he’s losing it now, just thinking about the omega.  
  
Most of Viktor’s ruts have been triggered by the anger and aggression of another Alpha challenging him. It’s been years since he had one over a person he wants to breed.  
  
See, that’s what he means. He meant to say _court,_ but it came out _breed,_ and that’s embarrassing as hell.  
  
He’s also hard a lot. Which is something he doesn’t have to deal with in an anger-triggered rut. At first he tried to satisfy that desire, but his pinning and desperation doubles with every orgasm that passes without the omega who threw him into this miserable situation there to fill the empty space under the furs and between his arms.  
  
It is literal pain.  
  
Death.  
  
Fuck.  
  
Viktor continues to run along the shore, snow gathering in his hair and lashes, trying to burn off the excess energy that’s making it impossible to sleep. With the weather so volatile now, he doesn’t dare wonder more than a mile from his den.  
  
But even then, sometimes he will blink into consciousness and find he has been running in the direction of the omega’s nest for a good fifteen minutes.  
  
Thankfully, after three days of sleepless (but never tired), restless (but never exhausted), rutting, it passes. Then he can finally bask in the withdrawal, where everything catches up to his body and he goes crashing down into a weakened, fatigued lump. He sleeps for two days, wakes up to scoff down roughly his body weight in seal meat, and then slumbers for another four.  
  
He spends winter-proper doing one of two things: painstakingly carving gifts for the omega, and then throwing them on the fire.  
  
-  
冬の始まり (the start of winter)  
-  
  
Yuuri has been spending the winter here for three embarrassing years.  
  
In this perfect little cave, in the centre of this perfect little mountain.  
  
It started, embarrassingly enough, when he – you know what? How about he just comes out and acknowledges his entire existence as being embarrassing. It’ll save time.  
  
Yuuri is a traveler – well, he _was_ a traveler. That all changed when he saw Viktor of the Nikiforovs skating across the ice at some weird Slavic ‘yay for winter’ festival. Or maybe it was a ‘oh no, winter’ sort of solace thing. Yuuri didn’t know. Back then his grasp on the language was paper thin.  
  
He had come to the festival for the sole purpose of selling what he didn’t need and bartering for some new clothes, fully intent to leave the second his business was concluded.  
  
There was a group of people out skating across the frozen river, half of them children. Yuuri had sat down in a quiet place on the shore to jam his new clothes into his bag (a sack, it was really a sack). He got lost watching the strangers soar around on the ice, their pretty festive clothes fluttering behind them. It had been nice to observe them, a rare way to connect to the local people without the barrier of language.  
  
Then he noticed him. Silver hair down to his waist, combed and half braided up in beautifully ornament knots. Wrapped up in sleek fabric of magenta with golden embroidery. Yuuri wondered how the vision of perfection wasn’t dead from frostbite. The clothes must be lined with fur, or layered over an outfit of insulating leather, or perhaps just of a far higher quality then anything Yuuri owned.  
  
Likely. Very likely. Yuuri was a traveler who liked to stick to the wilderness. Most of what he owned he made with his own two hands. His own two hands could not compare to a proper tailor. That was one of the main reasons he had grit his teeth and come to this ‘yay for winter’ thing. His own clothes weren’t cut for the job of keeping out the northern chill.  
  
Yuuri watched the vision of perfection loop and twirl for hours. He sat there, hushed and still, hidden away under the trees on the shoreline, watching like some hypnotized hawk.  
  
For Yuuri, the most heart stopping moment was when a miserably tiny child nearly went flying head first into the ice. Viktor reached out and caught them calmly before they could smack down, one handed, like he scooped up small children all the time or something. He then proceeded to hold the child’s hand and skate around in slow loops with them. Yuuri presumed he was teaching them the correct way to balance, because the kid went on to do much better after that.  
  
His mental state was pretty much in a ‘I would die for you’ situation after that. Verging towards ‘I would kill a man just to touch a _strand_ of your hair’.  
  
Most of the locals had traveled far to get to the ‘yay for winter’. So multiple large tents were available for lodging. Yuuri had originally planned to get winter clothes and get out, but that was almost physically impossible now. He needed to meet the vision of perfection. Needed to know their name at least. Needed to know what they looked like up close.  
  
How? He could learn to skate, and twirl out onto the river alongside the vision of perfection, and then the vision would skate alongside him like he had been doing with all types of fellow skaters all day, and then Yuuri will take their hands and look up at them and get to see their face. No doubt it will be as perfect as the rest of them.  
  
That idea was dashed when he went to the woman who made the skates, and realised he had nothing of equal value to trade for a pair. Well, he could afford them if he gave her every one of his worldly possessions, but that felt a decision that might _just_ come back to haunt him.  
  
Dusk started to fall, and the vision of perfect left the ice. Yuuri slunk off after them like a duckling, careful to keep as much distance as possible while never letting the silver skater out of his field of view.  
  
The vision stopped a lot to talk to people they bumped into. They were obviously a sociable local then, nothing like Yuuri, a highly anti-social foreigner.  
  
Ah. Ironic. Talking about being anti-social as he hides behind a pile of firewood.  
  
There had been a second, when the vision of perfection was inspecting some wares from one of smiths stalls, that Yuuri was on the verge of approaching him under the guise of also being interested in some new knives.  
  
Yuuri got within a few feet of them. Then he registered the particular weapon the vision was inspecting, and quickly backed right the fuck up.  
  
It was a dark blade that was engraved with daemon-toxic runes. Yuuri knew there were a few beasts and ghouls that ran around this part of the world, but he didn’t realise their hunting was at such a sophisticated level as to be pedalling engraved daggers at their festivals.  
  
As someone with the blood of a daemon in his veins, the sight of the runes was enough to strike cold fear in him. The Japanese hot-springs nymph his clan descends from was a rather friendly, non-threatening type of creature, but the runes and toxins used by hunters could hurt just the same – even on him, magical blood thinned over the generations.  
  
So Yuuri never goes near the vision. Too shaken and cowered. He just follows.  
  
They drifted off from the festival-proper and into where the sleeping tents were set up. Large extended families with the means had brought their own tents, meaning Yuuri had to weave around herds of screaming children and shaggy ponies, massive woolly camels, and a reindeer or two.  
  
The vision settles by a campfire, with a group of people they must be familiar with. This must be their family. A blonde-haired child alternates between yelling and playing with a dog, an older couple keep an eye on the pans of food cooking over the fire, and a red-haired female is fussing over her new purchases.  
  
That must be his mate, Yuuri thinks. The child must be his offspring, and the elderly couple his parents.  
  
Eventually it gets too cold for Yuuri to hide creepily in the shadows, so he goes in search for the lodging tents. Now that he knows where the vision’s tent is, a part of him feels satisfied.  
  
Back in the festival, lines of lanterns have been strung between tent poles and tree branches. It looks positively magically.  
  
He finds the lodging tent after a few stilted conversations with a bunch of people too happy-drunk to be annoyed. With a bit of luck, Yuuri usually bumps into someone who knows Korean right about now, and he can convince them to be his translator. A lot of Korean merchants pass through this province on their way to the larger cities inland.  
He doesn’t find any. But one of the locals who seems to be in charge of tent arrangements is semi-proficient with the language.  
  
The lodging tent is large and filled with pillows and rugs. A handful of people are already tucked up and asleep. He didn’t need to pay anyone, since the more inside the warmer the tent will be, so in a way he is helping them out by supplying his body heat. Yuuri picks a spot halfway between the centre and the walls, shoves his bag down, pulls his boots off, and promptly snuggles down into the copious amounts of rugs.  
  
Yuuri tosses and turns fitfully after that. It’s difficult to sleep in such a noisy, busy place after spending years wondering alone. The last time he had slept near anyone else was back in spring, when he had spent a few days charitably shacked up in a family’s barn as he waited for a wound to heal.  
  
He falls asleep to the sounds of drums and singing. It’s a drifting, slow tune, which all the locals seem to know and sing along to.  
  
He wakes up sometime in the night. Very dark and silent. The hours of music and dance been and gone. It takes him a few seconds of scowling up at the tent’s low roof to identify what woke him.  
  
A pair… or maybe a trio… of people are having muffled but noticeable ‘relations’ somewhere off to the left of him. Yuuri rolls his eyes and pulls the blanket up over him. The tent was solely for betas and omegas, so there wasn’t a risk of triggering anything with their actions, but still it was a bit rude. At least, it seemed that way to Yuuri with his Japanese upbringing. No one else in the tent had growled at them to shut up. Maybe it was more acceptable here.  
  
Yuuri closed his eyes and huffed. He wondered what the alpha’s over in their exclusively beta-alpha tent would make of this. He knew a popular alpha fantasy was stumbling across two omegas in the act of trying to pleasure each other.  
  
From the smell of the pheromones in the air, this was two omegas and one beta. All female as well. The hushed moans and cries of the females carried on for a few more minutes before tampering off one after the other in little shouts or choked off prayers.  
  
Finally, Yuuri could get back to sleep.  
  
The next morning Yuuri helped pull down the tent and got fed breakfast in return. He scoffed down the second-rate cuts of pork and some boiled green thing, almost licking the bowl clean when he was done.  
  
The land that was now clear thanks to the removal of the lodging tents was turned into a dance floor. Musicians set up by a roaring fire and soon lines upon lines of people were twirling amongst each other, flying from partner to partner as they all followed the steps to a dance Yuuri had never seen before.  
  
It was the final big hurrah before everyone set back out for their territories and travels. Yuuri found himself dragged into a less polished version of it by a group of travelers from the Zhonggou kingdom, who had started their own dance off to the side. They seemed to be overly-friendly with him because they looked a bit similar, a comfort for the travelers who Yuuri guessed had not been outside their country long. Yuuri on the other hand was a veteran compared to them. He didn’t even really think of his Japanese appearance anymore, or balk at the realisation he was surrounded by different people. Years of time separated him and the last mirror he looked into. He had seasons upon seasons to mellow into the sight that was ethnicities so removed from his own.  
  
After a few songs Yuuri felt comfortable with the steps and the rhythm. He folded out into the main dance floor, slipping into the lines of people like he had seen others do. He twirled and twirled to the beat of the song. He got lost in it, moving along the line of dance partners after every brief exchange of steps. The dance kept him warm.  
  
Yuuri didn’t even notice the silver skater until their hands were clasped. His eyes had still been trailing behind on his last dance partner, body just coming out of a tight spin. The sight of him, along with the smell, was like being thrown under the roaring white water of rapids.  
  
Somehow, he did not falter. Somehow, he did not trip. By some great miracle, Yuuri remembered the simple steps of the dance and managed to maintain dignity until he was spun away to the next person down the line. Face a mask. Body as flexible as dead wood. He was so successfully in his withdrawal he even managed to avoid eye contact.  
  
He had managed a fleeting moment of starting into those eyes though. Right at the end, when the silver skater had shifted away and turned to his next partner.  
  
Brilliant, brilliant blue.  
  
Yuuri left the dance soon after to go and hyperventilate under a tree. For some reason it had not occurred to him the silver skater would be an alpha. He seemed too delicate, too alluring, too kind and sweet and too much of a vision of perfection…  
  
But he was an Alpha. An Alpha whose secondary gender simmered away all quiet and small under layers of pleasantry. Layers that smelt like honey, melted snow and the delicious spice of furs in a nest. Strangely, the alpha smelt like Yuuri’s childhood territory the strongest. Of moss between wet stone, of the jasmine vine that grew up the side of his parent’s den, and most importantly, the sulphur of the hot springs.  
  
He smelled like utter, utter, utter perfection, and Yuuri realised his life was over. His body was reacting in an entirely different way now. Before it had been awe and admiration, devotion in the way you might worship a god or a hero.  
  
That changed after being held in his arms. Something had awoken the needy omega inside him, a part of himself he kept so in control he could almost forget it existed. His daemon blood cooled those instincts, almost smothered them until they were barely there.  
  
Now his hands shook as he buried them in his wild hair. Molten heat pooled and gurgled in his gut, fear spiking alongside his arousal, as if the emotions were one and the same. In this situation they might as well be.  
  
Yuuri watched the silver skater pack up and leave with his family. His eyes drifted over the red-haired female, sizing her up unwittingly, and over the child, two instincts going to war as he fought between feeling threatened and maternal for the offspring.  
  
Yuuri told himself he was watching the silver skater go, so that he could pick the exact opposite direction and bury himself in months of travelling so he could just forget everything. Forget, cleanse, flee.  
  
But that’s not what happened. Instead, he followed the vision of perfection all the way home, like some kicked dog, leaving a good half a day’s distance between them as he followed their scent through forests and valleys. When he crossed the border onto the Alpha’s territory, the omega in him purred like a cat with a kill.  
  
Yes, this will do nicely. This will do well. Now find the most obvious spot and nest. Nest and wait for him, present yourself for the taking. Lure him to you. Be claimed.  
  
Yuuri nearly ran into a tree when that wave of instincts rushed through him. He tried to leave. He did. But it would be winter in a few weeks, and the Alpha did command a rather prime territory, full of rivers and game, even a hot-springs to the delight of his daemon blood. It was a good spot to hold up through winter. Maybe he could convince the alpha to take him to his den? Play the pitiful omega, beg for it, his alpha instincts would make it near impossible to turn Yuuri away.  
  
Did he really want to spend winter stuck in a den with the red-haired mate and their loud offspring? None of his sexual desires to be returned or appreciated. Mated alpha’s with dependent children were rarely unfaithful.  
  
That sounded like pure torture. His omega instincts were not known for being the most logical of his many instincts. Beg for a season of torture? Pathetic.  
  
Yuuri attempted to leave, but as the smell of the Alpha’s territory drifted away involuntary whines and whimpers started forming in his chest. Loud and embarrassing. His knees felt weak, his gut felt heavy, he felt empty and abandoned. He felt wrong.  
  
One winter. What was the harm of one winter? That was all his omega was asking for. Just one little nest on the territory. Yuuri can tuck himself away where the Alpha will never find him, not in winter, at any rate.  
  
He crept through the territory like the ground was cracking ice, keeping his scent withdrawn and controlled so tight he was almost scentless. Yuuri let his daemon instincts drawn him towards the hot springs, and hoped they were isolated and hidden enough that he could nest by them. They smelt more underground than open air. Yuuri suspected they were inside some sort of cave system, hidden away from the outside world, only the most inquisitive or hopelessly lost able to find them.  
  
His instincts drew him up a mountain. He spent hours trying to follow the scent. He needed to get inside the rock somehow. Talk about impossible.  
  
Just before dark he managed to find a space between the rock faces further up the mountain. He squirmed inside and followed the narrow tunnel downwards, dropping down some falls that were just deep enough to be scary yet managable. The cave widened and flattened out eventually, the sulphur and mugginess of hot water filling the air.  
Not only could his daemon blood use the minerals in the hot springs as a substitute of food over the winter, but the heavy sulphur smell would do wonders to mask his scent. Yes, this was the best of both worlds. Nesting on the alphas territory and pleasing his omega. Soaking in the hot springs and pleasing his daemon blood. Keeping hidden to please his embarrassed human sensibilities.  
  
Strangely enough he didn’t go into heat or masturbate through that winter. The thought of nesting on the territory of an Alpha he desired didn’t stir him sexually as much as it calmed him. His anxieties melted away that winter, leaving him to do nothing but contently lounge naked and baby soft in the springs.  
  
He left very early in the spring. So early the alpha hadn’t even emerged from his den and rescented his territories markers. Yuuri marched off west and felt happy in the realisation he was moving on.  
  
Except he didn’t really move on. When autumn came around again he was hit with what could only be described as homing instincts. His omega instincts started getting so frayed and stressed from being ignored that he begun blacking out semi-regularly.  
  
He found himself back in that cave. This time he did go into a heat. His omega was so starved and distressed through autumn, that the briefest of relief the winter home gave was enough to trigger one.  
  
A lot happened that second year. The heat changed things. It was different.  
  
He built an actual nest, with branches, leaves and moss he had scavenged from the Alpha’s territory. Even so brazen as to snap off a branch the Alpha was using as a scent marker, the oils off the Alpha’s glands nervously yet achingly fresh. Yuuri lay all his clothes and furs out, and the end product was something that would serve its purpose just fine.  
  
His instincts wanted more. They wanted more scent, more furs, more gifts, and a move obvious location. Yuuri drew the line at hunting in the Alpha’s territory. That would give him away instantly, let alone asking for trouble. He could be killed for something like that.  
  
So Yuuri curled up in the perfectly acceptable nest he had made, and proceeded to get absolutely fucked up on pheromones and instincts. He lost the ability to walk, talk or have a clear conscious. He spent a week in that nest, most of it spent touching himself to fantasies of the alpha finding him down here and joining him. Roughly, gently, quickly, slowly, it didn’t really matter. Hell, once he caught the sight of a rock near the entrance way, and from the corner of his eye it looked like a person standing there watching him. He came more intensely than all the rest – and it was just a split second of thinking he had actually been found.  
  
So, yes. Yuuri had a problem. He hides away in this cave during the winter like some dirty secret. Like some parasite living off a bear and hoping he never got scratched at, too reliant on the bear, too needy. Viktor of the Nikiforovs was going to be the death of him and at this rate Yuuri was going to die willingly.  
  
He had come back this year too. Third time in a row. The last time, he vowed. This was going to be the last winter he spent anywhere without ten thousand miles of Viktor.  
  
Yuuri was asleep when the scratching started. He jerked awake, senses attuned and alert, focusing on the faint sound. He held perfectly still as he tried to identify where it was coming from. It echoed along the cave’s walls, making it hard to pin point the origin. Somewhere away in the tunnels, something clawing and huffing. Something was trying to get past the barrier he had constructed in the narrowest section of passageway.  
  
Yuuri pulled himself out of the hot springs painfully slowly, successfully keeping the water from sloshing and making loud splashes. He tip toed over to where his things were spread out, snatching up his hunting knife and shifting into a wary stance.  
  
Then he realised he was entirely naked. Being seen in the nude never shamed Yuuri, but in this situation a layer of armor, no matter how thin, would be beneficial.  
He grabbed the closest thing and threw it on. A coat of tightly woven wool, soft grey and undyed. He had managed to get it before the tailor had, saving it for being pinned and styled. Yuuri had snatched it up and turned it into something that weakly resembled a yukata from home.  
  
So there he was, inching up the tunnel and clutching at his blade, barefoot, still drenched from the water, with the billowing sleeves and open front of a near-yukata he hadn’t even bothered to tie shut.  
  
He got to the barricade, and sure enough something was trying to dig through. Now that he was close enough, Yuuri realised it wasn’t human. It was a creature. A canine or a species of wild cat, maybe. Yuuri very carefully tried to peek through one of the tiny gaps and get a look at the intruder.  
  
Too small for a wolf. Tail wagging too much to be a cat. Brown and fluffy. Fur so long it curled at the ends. Droopy ears and open eyes when it looked up.  
  
A dog. A wild dog? Or someone’s hound? If the dog were here than the master couldn’t be far away.  
  
Yuuri clutched at the hem of his coat, panic flooding his senses. Nothing could fit in once the snow blocked the main entrance, which meant this dog had slipped inside through another gap somewhere. Fear spiked in him with the realisation that there had been a second entrance all this time. God, what would have happened if this second entry was after the barricade? Idiot. Idiot. This creature could have waltzed right down into the chamber that housed the hot springs.  
  
The dog had started whining and digging at the barricade with a new determination. Likely just noticing his presence. Yuuri hurriedly started making sure the construction of rocks and logs wasn’t falling apart under the canine’s efforts.  
  
Yuuri growled at the dog, and pushed an angry scent into the air, trying to scare the thing off.  
  
“Go away,” he snapped, pitching his voice into a low, aggressive growl. The dog reacted instantly, jumping back and yapping in annoyance. It was looking more and more likely that this was a tame dog, which was the worst of the two outcomes. The thing needed to leave before its master came looking, and if…  
  
Horror flushed through him. Blood roared in his ears. What were the chances someone besides Viktor was wondering around his territory, at this time of the year, with a hunting hound in tow?  
  
Very, very, very slim.  
  
On second inspection, this dog did look a lot like the one he had seen from a distance a few times. The one Viktor owned.  
  
“Go away, get lost!” Yuuri hissed venomously. Switching from Japanese to the local language for the first time. Now he really unleashed his scent, not having to focus on manufacturing like before, because he really was an upset, angry, desperate mess. “I will not hesitate to stab you if you don’t leave.” Yuuri muttered darkly in Japanese. From what he could see, the dog just cocked its head at him and panted happily.  
  
Yuuri had been around dogs before. He even liked dogs. In fact, his clan back home had a kennel full of them. When he was nine he got a young puppy of his own to raise, something about teaching him responsibility was what Yuuri vaguely remembered a cousin telling him. Yuuri was comfortable around dogs.  
  
He just wasn’t all that keen on the dogs in these lands. They were bigger and scarier. They pulled sleighs around for god’s sake! It was like some witch had managed to shrink bears down until they came up to your hip, and then casted some weak glimmer so they vaguely resembled dogs, just enough for the foolish locals to mistake them for such.  
  
But Yuuri wasn’t fooled. No, not him. He was smart. He was a survivor.  
  
Yuuri went off and collected all the rocks he could, packing up the barricade even more. The dog whined unhappily at him. It was sort of cute, annoyingly enough.  
  
A voice echoed down the tunnel. Faint but clear.  
  
Yuuri’s heart literally stopped. Was this what a stroke felt like? Was this death? Oh, please let it be death. If Viktor was coming down the passage way right now… was he angry with Yuuri? Disappointed? Was he going to throw Yuuri off his territory on the brink of winter? Take him back to his den?  
  
He listened as the dog bounced away, joyfully yapping and scuttling off. Silence followed for the next three hours.  
  
So…  
  
The dog had found him, but had Viktor? Or had they both, but Viktor just couldn’t follow the dog down? Did he know? Or had Yuuri just managed to fluke this by the skin of his teeth?  
  
Yuuri realised, to great horror, that he had not managed to fluke the encounter when the dog returned the next day. That meant Viktor was back in the vicinity, and that was certainly no coincidence. He knew for a fact that the alpha had never once wondered up this mountain during the winters.  
  
They didn’t come the day after that. Or the next or the next. A blizzard raged outside over that time, and Yuuri knew that was probably the only reason he was being left alone.  
  
Against his will, Yuuri decided that it would be wise to wonder on out and find the gap the dog had gotten through. Maybe block it up. So he carefully deconstructed a section of his new and improved barricade and traced the scents left over from the dog coming and going. He followed it up and up, confusion growing because… this was really close to the entrance Yuuri used, except it shouldn’t be open because the snows generally covered it over.  
  
Yuuri followed the dog’s path all the way to the exact same entrance Yuuri used. He buried his head in his hands and groaned. Usually the gap got snowed over, like it was right now, but that was because of the blizzard, and a few days ago it must have been just a tad bit revealed thanks to an unusually snow-less week.  
  
So he had a dilemma. The ‘nesting without detection’ thing was well and truly shot, and if Viktor ever figured out that to get in all he had to do was dig down into the snow, where the gap widened out, then he was screwed.  
  
If Viktor left his winter den before Yuuri managed to pack up and run for the spring time hills, then he was also, once again, screwed.  
  
It was too late to leave. Not even the meters of packed snow that sealed him in could muffle the screaming of the blizzard outside. Like a terrified ghost at night.  
  
So Yuuri went back down and decided to accept death. He repaired his barricade sadly, knowing it wouldn’t last long against another human. He scattered his collection of blades around the cave, so that he was never more than five feet away from one, and proceeded to have the most nerve racking winter of his entire twenty-five years. Where he used to sleep twenty-two hours a day, now he kept waking up every half an hour covered in sweat. Not from a good type of dream either.  
  
Nightmares. Many, many nightmares.  
  
He had severely overlooked the problems of this whole sorry situation. Emotional attachments to the cave had been nurtured, attachments to Viktor were deep rooted in his instincts after these three years. Encountering the Alpha face to face was the worst outcome possible. Some part of him might break and beg, equally likely he could snap from the rejection and go into a withdrawn depression, spiralling down into death by starvation and hopelessness.  
  
Or try to rip Viktor’s throat out. That was something omega’s were prone to. If the bonds of a relationship were to ever become stressed, omega’s often went into these aggressive fevers. If the alpha was strong enough to subdue them, then the bond was strengthened (somehow… Yuuri was a bit foggy on the intimate details as to how a lot of dynamic stuff actually happened). If the alpha wasn’t strong enough and the omega successfully killed or maimed them, then it meant the omega was released from the bonds and could happily go off in search for another lover.  
  
He will never forgive himself if he injured Viktor. It would be mortifying if it happened, because it would scream loud and clear that Yuuri’s instincts considered themselves already in a relationship with Viktor and… oh god there was no easy way out of this situation, was there?  
  
Yuuri sunk down into the water and considered what it would be like to drown. Then realising that it might be impossible thanks to his daemon blood, and barely resisted the urge to scream himself hoarse.  
.

.

.


	2. During Winter

 

-

зимой (during winter)

-

Inside a warm winter den, Viktor holds on to sanity as best he can.

No one told him that ruts bounce back every moon if his love goes unrequited. Did no one think to mention this? Was it meant to be obvious or something? Well fuck them. Fuck them all. Specifically, fuck the omega. Yeah, that would really helpful actually. If they could fuck.

Viktor has enough time to blearily wonder if one fuck would fix him or if it would take more. How many does his body need to be satisfied? He’s observed well and truly by now that it’s not about orgasms, because he’s been having plenty of those on his own. It must be about scenting, or claiming instincts.

Maybe he needs to nuzzle them, or lick at their scent glands, would that fix him?

Could be simply explain the issue and ask for one of the omega’s shirts, and then roll around in it until all unreasonable desires have left him?

Why did this have to happen now? Perfectly timed to snowed him in with all his troubles. Any other day and he would have been running to Yakov and Lilia, the two Alpha’s would know how to fix this… right? _Right?!_

But they lived in the foothills of the mountain range. Two days journey normally. Two _weeks_ journey in the winter. Blizzards were screaming in from the icecaps every forty-eight hours and Viktor would die. Without doubt.

Some part of him whispered that, with luck and good timing, he could make it to the omega’s den between blizzards. He could get to them.

Some part of him listened and agreed.

Some part of him thought it was the best idea in the whole wide world.

He layered up in his best winter gear, packed a bag full of presents he could use to bribe the omega into his favour, and poked his head out of the den. Viktor gauged the state of the skies and wondered what time it was. It was dark and cloudless. The moon and stars were crystal clear, like a field of torches spread high above him.

He left Makkachin in the den with a freshly opened stash of meat cuts. She was sleeping and he didn’t want to wake her, besides someone needed to keep an eye on the den. A deeper part didn’t want her company where he was going, so possessive over the unclaimed omega that he didn’t even want his precious dog getting in the way.

Viktor cut across his territory like winds across the arctic ocean. He wasn’t acting normal. He didn’t find his way with familiarity, landmarks, tracks and markers. No, he found his way through instinct, through a pull in his gut, making his journey a straight line from den to mountainside.

He wasn’t sure if this new route was faster or slower. He wasn’t sure when the winds started to pick up and scream with the incoming of the next blizzard. He only noticed it when he got to the base of the mountain and looked up, the soft skin of his face suddenly exposed to the wind and stinging red from where the airborne ice was thrashing him. Viktor trekked up that mountain, following in the footsteps of those elk from last moon.

Viktor found the gap only thanks to the spear he had left behind. The top half of it sticking out of the snow while the bottom half was buried under. He settled his hand around the familiar weapon and yanked it up out of the ground. Wiping snow off it, he inspected his own craftsmanship closely, criticised it and taking in all its flaws. _This isn’t good enough for the omega,_ some part told him. Viktor purred as he remembered he had brought a new spear with him that night, one he had re-made and re-made until at last he held something akin to perfection in his hands.

The man put his bag and the spear down, crouched down by the rock face and started to dig into the snow with both hands. The gap had been fully buried, didden away. Safe. But were they okay in there? Trapped?

Viktor dug faster, clearing more and more snow until he didn’t know when to stop. The gap looked different than he remembered it like this, but that must be because of the higher snows.  Yes, the snow. Keep digging.

Viktor zoned out. In the same way he had zoned out while running along the shoreline last moon. He was losing bits and pieces of his memory while digging, blinking awake with a meter of snow gone, or a strain in his shoulders suddenly blooming to life.

He looked up after one of these brain-fades to be greeted by the sight of a significantly wider gap. So wide it almost looked… like… he could… fit through it?

Viktor crawled forward slowly, and gasped as he managed to slowly fit his body through, crawling into the cave beyond with no small amount of pride. It was much warmer in here. Much quieter. No icy blasts scrapping across his skin, his legs no longer freezing over from where they lay buried in upturned snow.

He curled up. The unstoppable shivers that had been racking him for the last hour making his movements jerky and stiff. He curled up and searched for warmth. He curled up and hoped the parts of him that he could no longer feel were simply numb from the cold and hadn’t fallen off.

When Viktor becomes aware again, it is with no small amount of confusion and disassociation.

Furs across every inch of skin. Hands bound and restrained above his head somewhere. Somewhere dim. Foggy, steamy?

He could see just enough to know this was a cave, and he was in a pile of furs off to the side.

Viktor shifted and craned his head back, blinking rapidly as he tried to understand what he was looking at. Someone had roped his hands and tied them around a pillar of limestone. He breathed in the calcium of the rock around him, along with the strong scent of volcanic water. Then he froze. Another scent.

The omega. It was all around the cave. In the furs that Viktor was sprawled upon even. What was going on? The last thing he remember is… is… going somewhere? Yakov’s?

Viktor grunted as he leveraged himself up into a sitting position, back going against the rough limestone rock, causing a flash of memory to pass through him. Had there been another uncomfortable rock he lay against recently? That made sense. There _was_ a large amount of rocks around here.

He continued to take in his surroundings. It seemed to be a large chamber, long but far from straight as it curled and twisted, creating walls of rock that hid the rest of the chamber from sight. The roof was rather high above where he was, but further down it lower dramatically, until there was barely any headroom to walk.

With night-vision adjusting, Viktor could now make out three different sized pools of water. Bits of steam lazily trailed up into the air, moss and ferns grew on the ceiling and walls, gleaming like green jewels in the damp enviroment. As he stared in awe at the water, he noticed that what he had first mistaken for rock was in fact a person.

His hair was dark enough to mix in with the wet stone around him, and his skin pale enough it blended with the water and disappear under it without a shade of difference to outline his form. They were watching him through half-lidded eyes.

Viktor stared back. Possibly with his jaw on the floor.

They remained that way for what must have been half of an hour. He didn’t know what was running through the man’s mind, but personally Viktor was too busy drinking in the view. His expression was absurdly cute, check squashed up from where he was leaning his head on his hand, loose hair falling in front of his eyes, a little pout on his pink lips.

And then the man moved. Leaning forward ever so slowly, before standing up much too quickly. Viktor might have gasped at the sight of the completely nude body on display. He might not have.

He wasn’t tall and lean like Viktor, but still managed to capture a slender elegance in the way he moved. He was roundish and soft the way healthy people were, carrying an extra layer of weight in the places Viktor was pleased to find it in. His stomach soft, arms strong, hips flaring out ever-just-so and those thighs… those thighs! Underneath it all was the quiet suggestion of power. The smooth but defined forms of his muscles visible only by a trick of the imagination in this dim cave.

Viktor watched closely as the man took calculated steps towards him. Forcefully unrushed, purposefully even steps. He came to a stop by Viktor and crouched down beside him, eyes staring into Viktor’s face so intently that it was impossible to look away and allow his eyes to roam over the rest of the man.

“Your ruts passed, then?” The man’s voice was angelic. The most perfect accent he had ever heard echoed around the cave, sounds articulated confidently and correctly, but the overall flow of it more rounder and softer than he had ever heard it spoken before. Then what the man had asked hit him.

“It’s passed?” He blinked slowly. He had been going into a rut, hadn’t he? That’s right. He left the den to go to the mountain cave, he dug through the snow and crawled inside, he woke up again... here? With the rut over?

Viktor frowned.

Apparently witnessing a well of emotions and confusion flash across Viktor’s face was enough to convince the strange man that the rut had indeed passed.

“Hmm, took about four days,” the man hummed while reaching for the rope around Viktor’s hands. As he shifted Viktor caught the scent of an omega and he suddenly realised.

It was weird how he hadn’t put it together quicker, but he supposed, he was just expecting someone different. It wasn’t until he smelt the exact omega smell on the man’s skin that the two sensation – sight and smell – merged together.

“Is that usual? Four days?” The stranger chattered as he made quick work of the ropes.

Viktor didn’t actually know how long his ruts took. No one was ever there to count for him.

The rut explained the ropes. The omega had to take steps to protect himself from an out of control alpha. Viktor went cold at that realisation. What had he done?!

 “Ah, yeah. Humph.” He huffed as the ropes were finally gone, releasing his arms to reel in fresh pain. Bringing them back in front of him felt like his muscles were straining and fighting against ten thousand new ropes. They must have been tied back for ages to feel like this. _Four days_ his mind unhelpfully supplied, along with the reason why someone had felt the need to restrain him.

“Sorry if they're a bit sore,” the man apologised, one hand absently running down Viktor’s arm as if testing the muscle there for tenderness. Viktor barely resisted the dual urges to flinch back or leap forward.

“I’m sorry if I hurt you.” Viktor burst out. On the brink of bursting into tears along with the declaration. “I’m sorry if I did anything to you! I’m so sorry!” The man straightened, startled.

“Hey, it’s okay. You didn’t do anything to me.”

“That wasn’t what I want to be. I isn’t who I am, I’m sorry for whatever I did and I’ll make it up to you. Truly. Truly, _truly, truly, truly.”_

The fact that the man looked absolutely blindsided by his words was what broke Viktor’s heart.

“Ah – um,” he stuttered out, withdrawing just the slightest bit from Viktor. “Like I said before, it’s okay. You didn’t do anything. I found you nearly frozen to death and brought you down here. You stayed on your blankets like I told you to. The rope wasn’t really necessary but… I didn’t really want to play with fire _that_ much.” His hand came back up to touch Viktor’s arm ever so lightly. “I swapped the way you were bound every half of an hour, so you wouldn’t get too hurt. Feet or hands. You were always very obedient for me.” Here his hand squeeze reassuringly. “You were very polite, I was impressed.”

Okay. So he hadn’t been trying to ravish the omega, but instead bent to his every last wish? Honestly that sounded like something he would do. Viktor of the Nikiforov: when rutting enjoys sitting quietly in corners and doing whatever a random (cute) omega asks of him.

_His hands groped around blindly, but they couldn’t reach the stranger who had him pinned against the wall. A hand secured a fistful of hair and pressed Viktor’s face into the cool rock. ‘You going to be good for me now?’ The stranger growled into his ear, lips brushing up against his skin and making Viktor gasp into the rock he was being held against._

“Oh, well that’s…” He muttered distractedly out over the pools. What had that been? A recollection of a wet-dream from his rut? Had his brain become some sort of weird on-demand fantasy provided after what _must_ have been a torturous rut? Right in the omega’s nest but very so untouchable, unreachable.

“Come, can you stand up? You guys are usually pretty weak after ruts, but you didn’t expend much energy on this one. You should recover faster, I think.” Viktor very pathetically used the offered hand to get to unsteady feet. It sure felt like he had been hit by a very similar, if not larger, avalanche than he did after last rut.

“I don’t know about that.” He rasped out, a bit light headed from standing up.

He followed the omega to the other end of the chamber, to what was obvious the main part of the man’s nest. He had his pile of furs and blankets, looking deliriously snug and inviting. He had a range of weapons and tools spread out and a few neatly arranged piles of materials. Wood, roots, rocks with bronze ore inside them, a bag that the omega reached into to retrieve pieces of an already expertly butchered animal.

“Sit down,” the omega ordered with surprising confidence, heading over to the blackened circle of what must be the usual fire place. “I’ll start a fire and cook these up. You rest til then, okay?” His eyes drifted over to his nest and then nodded towards it, a near invitation to use it.

Viktor thought he would internally combust as he gingerly padded over and lay down in the pile of furs. He curled up and used the least amount of room possible, determinedly making himself very much not at home in this omega’s nest.

He closed his eyes and focused on the sounds of the man moving the branches and twigs about, the spark of fire, the crackle of flames, the faint clank of an iron pan. The feel of the thick fur beneath him, the comforting scent of a nest, so similar to that of a den, encompassing him.

Viktor feel back into sleep embarrassingly quickly.

_He was disorientated._

_Warm. Hot? Wet. But warm? Water on bare skin. Naked? Rocks digging into his back. Ouch? Try to sit up and… can’t? Hands bound? Weak? Sight foggy. Steam? Where? A cave? Dark. Dim. He was leaning on the rim of a pool. Still too dark to figure anything else out, not until his body fully recovered and regained it’s ability to function._

_If he wasn’t so exhausted he could barely raise his head, then the sensation of a hand landing on the nape of his neck would have had him ten feet in the air. As it happened, all he did was yelp very, very softly. It was almost a huff._

_That hand stayed there, wet and warm. Eventually the thumb started idly stroking across his skin, unknowingly or knowingly rubbing the tension out of that one little spot. Viktor relaxed into the caring touch, his shoulders dropping with a groan. The person said something, but Viktor wasn’t in the right state of mind to recognise his own language let alone a beautifully accented version of it._

_The hand left his nape to comb his long hair off his skin. It was wet and sticking to him, hanging heavily over his eyes and tangling on the skin of his shoulders and back. The hands were gentle and sure, running through his hair and pulling it up high, exposing his nape to the coolness of the air and making him sigh._

_The person was mumbling to him. Their voice soothing. Lulling him into a haze of sloppy relaxation._

_Eventually, with every breath that passed, he could feel the hold of the rut regaining. He was slipping back down into the basic desires once more, not matter how battered his body was, it continue to flood him with hormones as best it could, intentions good and reasonable to the ancient evolutionary reasoning of the alpha inside him._

_“Hey? Calm alright? Calm, calm, you can be calm. Calm…” the voice was saying in soothing tones behind him. The voice, that person, that smell, oh god! Viktor was no longer anything resembling calm. He reached up into his hair and grabbed at the hand there, holding it tight and starting to turn around to look behind him._

_This was the omega. He could smell it. Feel it. His grip on their wrist was vice like. They weren't getting away from him._

_“No. Hey, just relax. Calm. Nice and calm. Deep breathes. Calm.” As Viktor spun to the left, they slide away to the right, always remaining directly behind him. They ripped their hand from his grasp, making Viktor feel weak and clumsy with how they slipped away from him like silken thread. He heard the sloshing of water as they slipped into the pool along with him. Hands - now stronger and firmer - latched onto either shoulder and every so cautiously pinned him up against the rock edge. Somehow they had completely turned around. Viktor’s chest against the rock, and the omega still at his back, hidden from view. He felt a growl starting to rumble out of him._

_This was unacceptable._

_“Let’s focus your mind on something else, okay? You just stay nice and calm for me, okay? Nice and still.” A hand snaked around his hip and downwards, very clearly telegraphing it’s intent to him. The other hand came down between his shoulder blades, applying pressure there. Viktor froze in time, hyper awake of the hands on him and the breath of the omega drawing in and out against that one sliver of skin against his back and – the omega wrapped his hand very gently around Viktor's cock, trailing up and down its entirety in exploration. “Good alpha, good alpha, nice and quiet like that.”_

_Viktor gave into the pressure between his shoulder blades, leaning forwards onto the rock. He rested his bound hands on the slippery rock there and buried his head in the crock of his left elbow. He bit down on a mouthful of his own skin as he tried to be ‘nice’ and ‘quiet’ and ‘good’._

_The hand had started much more purposeful movements now. Viktor was vaguely aware that he had gone from flaccid to erect in a shocking amount of time. The other hand was still between his shoulder blades. Pushing less but still a presence, gently trying to keep him still and pinned against the poolside while its counterpart did all sorts of sinful things between his legs._

_“Shhh, keep nice and quiet for me. Okay? You’re doing such a good job. So calm. So obedient. Do you like what I’m doing for you?” Viktor groaned so loud at that last question he thought the rocks would rumble beneath his flushed skin. Did he like what wa- did he like it? With the heat of the hot springs drifting around him and the wetness of the water between the hand and his dick. He was in ninth fucking heaven. “I’ll take that as a yes?” He could just feel the smirk in the other’s face, even though he had yet to see it. Viktor wanted to turn and see that face. Trap him in his arms and kiss the living day lights out of the other and then shove him up against the pool side and return the favour two-fold. Hold him down and bury all the way inside him. Bite at him and never stop until the other was so completely destroyed he was begging for more, begging for mercy, begging for Viktor. Ruin him, claim him, never let him leave._

_As soon as he started to twist the other man jammed his elbow into his spine and shoved him back into the rock. Hard. The wind went out of him with a grunt. The hand around his member stilled and tightened into a controlling grip that had Viktor holding his breath, reevaluating the complete shift in personality._

_“Now that’s not very well behaved of you.” They whispered just as breathlessly as Viktor has been feeling since that hand first snaked around his hip. “If you want me to continue, you’ve got to be nice and calm for me, okay? Quiet and calm. Gentle. Be a good alpha and let me do this for you. Let me please you, okay? Don’t interrupt me. Keep very still and very calm. Calm. Calm. Calm.” His hand resumed pumping to the pace of his ‘calms’._

_Viktor chanted the words in his head. He buried his face deeper into his elbow and well and truly bit into his flesh. Calm. Calm. Calm. He repeated in his mind with every stroke.  I’ll be good. I’ll be good. I’ll be calm._

_The other seemed intent not to let the rub off descend into a desperate pace. He kept it up, rhythmic and just on the delicious side of slow. Fingers started to twirl around and run along new points of interest as the wrist continued its mission. Calm, calm, calm. Calm as they circled around his head. Calm as they followed along the vein. Calm as they circled around his balls to the mortifyingly sensitive seam of skin there. Calm as they stroked and massaged the base of his cock when his knot started to grow into existence. Viktor came apart to the overwhelming yet slow ministrations and the praise of ‘there’s a good alpha’ when the omega felt the dick in his hands jerk on the cusp of an orgasm._

Viktor wakes from the long stretch of darkness that claims him after that wet dream to the smell of something delicious and a warm hand on his arm. Blue eyes snap open and are treated to the view of the cute omega leaning over him and looking down with something of a searching gaze.

“Foods ready Viktor.”

The sound of his name on the omega’s lips might have gotten him hard again if his body wasn’t in a completely ruined state of physical withdrawal. He once again accepts the hand offered to him and eases up to his feet. The omega is clothed now in a comfy looking grey shawl-robe thing.

He gets led over to the fireside, now only a small dying fire, the wood not in flames but simply glowing orange and golden from what smolders away inside. The heat coming off it is just right. The omega shoves him down onto one of the flat cushions that have materialised. A ceramic bowl full of food is jammed in his empty hands along with a spoon. Did the spoon really matter? Viktor would happily eat this dish with his hands if he had to. He expected some browned meat and a bit of water to drink - it was what passed for the usual, if not hearty, meal for Viktor - this however…

In the bowl was mainly rice. He knew what rice was. The Korean traders brought it up from the south. Apparently, it was a cheap stable food in the south, but up here, where it had to make such a journey to reach them, it had become more of an indulgent foreign cuisine.

Topping the rice was slices of boiled eggs. Small and miscoloured enough that Viktor recognised them as a seagull’s, a favourite of his. He didn’t eat them boiled very often, instead preferring stretching them out into an omelette. Also sliced up along with the eggs was a mouth-watering cut of… goat? No. Deer? No. Boar? Most likely. Viktor turned a piece of the boar over to inspect it closer. It was fried, maybe, with other stuff on its skin? Marinated?

Over it and worked through it all was the chopped-up leaves of a young onion plant. He had never seen it served in such a way. Usually it’s new shoots were eaten pretty much straight off the plant. This man seemed to have dried it and preserved it for eating months later. He specifically picked out the young onion and chewed on it slowly. The omega watched him carefully.

“It grows in the northern parts of my country too. We call it monk garlic. The Koreans call it alpine garlic. I’ve seen several ways to cook it over my travels.”

“You’re a traveller?” He asked softly, feeling incredibly privileged to be told any of this. Tucking every last word away to remember for ever and ever.

“Do I look like I’m from here?” The man asked flatly with a raised eyebrow.

“With the way alpha’s move about, you could be. Technically I’m not from here either. I was born nearby, but by mother is from the lands out west, my grandparents a bit more west still, generations of my ancestors moving a bit further east has ended in me. A lovely territory against the sea. Nowhere east to go anymore. Quite sweet, don’t you think?” The man nodded. “Where are you from, then?”

“Southern Japan.”

Viktor cooned at the words, realising he recognised it. “I know of it! Vaguely but I know it. An island chain across a stretch of sea, right?”

“Yeah. That’s a fair summary I… suppose.”

Viktor, overjoyed that he actually knew something about this mysterious man, took a great big bite out of the food. He straightened as the flavours melted in his mouth.

“Oh… my god.” He swallowed, hands maybe a little shaky as he clasped the bowl tighter. “It’s _delicious!”_

-

冬の間 (during winter)

-

A shiver went through Yuuri at the alpha’s praise.

He resolutely ignored it. Right now he needed upmost composure, he needed to look unthreatening and respectful so he didn’t get chased off the territory as soon as Viktor recovered enough to do such chasing.

Yuuri watched Viktor shovel the meal down, a small part warm and blushing at how much the older man was enjoying his cooking.

_I would be a good mate, see?_

No! No – none of that! Stop.

“How long do you usually spend in withdrawal?” The silver skater lowered the bowl from his face minutely, head tilted as he regarded the question.

“I’m not actually too sure. Three is the average time, right?” Yuuri wondered why he, an omega, was being quizzed over a biological function that Viktor has lived most his life with.

“Ah, yeah there abouts. It’s generally the same for heats, so… yeah, three.” He was too busy prodding at his own bowl of katsudon to see the way Viktor’s eyes snapped up at the word ‘heat’.

“Hmm…” Viktor hummed, looking determindly nonchalant while resting his elbow on his knee. “So, how are your heats? I know some omegas rarely have them and others have _tones._ ”

Yuuri was just about to childe Viktor that his question was rather inappropriate when he remembered where they were. Right, nesting on Viktor’s territory. He owed the man an explanation. Yuuri cleared his throat and put his bowl carefully down.

“I suppose I’m rather below average. I have the major late-summer one like all other omegas, um, and then it depends on how well I’ve been eating and how comfortable I feel for any genuine heats to start outside that.”

“Not even pseudo-heats?” Viktor leaned in over the dying fire in a manner Yuuri was sure had intentions of being playfully curious but came off threatening.

“No. I’m not really one to suffer from pseudo-heats.” Yuuri informed in what he hoped was an innocent, totally honest voice. Why did Viktor ask that? Did he suspect something, worse, did he _remember_ something?

When it came to pseudo-heats, Yuuri was unfortunately afflicted. His clan in general were heavy pseudo-heaters, a clear sign it had something to do with their daemon blood. The normal omega might experience one or two a year, triggered by intense adrenaline from a killer fight or a near-death-experience or a steamy encounter. Yuuri on the other hand… any scuffle would see him start one, any hunt or instance where adrenaline was involved at all was generally enough to put him down for the next six hours with the increased sex-drive and instincts of a psedudo-heat. He had them so often, he could master them and keep on operating like a normal human being through the short fake-heat period.

Sometimes wondering across Viktor’s fresh scent was enough to trigger one. So of course dragging the half-frozen man down into the hot springs started one he just – argh! This would be so much easier if he just didn’t think about it too hard. He might have gotten a bit more handsy then usual with the totally-out-of-it alpha, but nothing more. Praise be. Just... _handsy_...

Normal omegas couldn’t physically have pseudo-heats within four weeks of one another. Yuuri normally went three weeks between instances. With Viktor in his cave… in his nest… he highly suspected a new record could be in the works.

That thought frankly terrified him. What would a lucid Viktor make of Yuuri suffering from a psudeo-heat? Yuuri might be able to keep up appearances and act like nothing is happening, but his scent will be unmistakable.

“Is that so?” Viktor raised his fingers to tap at his bottom lip, eyes drifting off in contemplation. Yuuri sensed more privacy invading questions were brewing just on the tip of the alpha’s tongue, so he dived in as quick as he could to derailed the man’s train of thought.

“What about you? Go into rut very often?” He somehow managed to not squeak it out, instead reaching bored indifference with a precision that made him straighten with pride.

“Hmm? Oh, hardly never at all.” Yuuri winced as Viktor waved the question off. If he didn’t suffer ruts often, then Yuuri must have _really_ pissed him off to draw one out. “It’s quite embarrassing really for you to see me in such a state. I didn’t say anything too… insensitive, did I?”

“No, you hardly spoke at all. I think you tried to threaten me very creatively at one point but you were too out of it to really follow through. You did roll into my cave half dead, remember. You never really regained much strength after waking up, I’m actually surprised by how awake you are right now.” Yuuri made a meaningful glance between the bowl and Viktor. “So keep eating, please.”

It was actually a real turn on, the way the alpha’s eyes widened slightly and he instantly complied, chewing on another spoonful with purpose. Ha. The more you know.

They finished their meals in silence. As Yuuri reached across to collect Viktor’s polished bowl, he decided to propose the plan he had been strategizing for some time now.

“You should stay here until you’ve recovered, then we’ll see how the weather is coming along and work it out from there. How far away is your den, exactly?” Yuuri knew where Viktor’s den was. He hadn’t seen it, oh no he never dared get that close, but he knew roughly where it was.

“Stay here? Yes, that’s a great idea.” A wide smile engulfed the man’s slightly flushed face. The meal must be working wonders, he was looking in better health already. “My den is…” Viktor mulled over his next words like he honestly had to think hard about it. Suddenly he snapped up straight. “Makkachin! I left her behind! She’s probably worried sick, I have to – no, she has enough food to last, but…” the alpha threw his head into his hands and looked to be a strand of beautiful silver hair away from wailing in despair.

“Ah, a-ah, there there Viktor, she should be fine for a week or two, yeah? She’s a strong girl, as long as she stays in the den there shouldn’t be a problem.” Yuuri couldn’t believe his life has gotten to the point where he was comforting Viktor over, what, leaving his mate alone? That had to be who he was referring to, right? His mate, that red haired woman? He could also be worried over that blonde-haired child they have, but Yuuri was sure the boy was old enough to have left the den by now. He didn’t seem to mention anyone else, so he was probably right.

“You’re right, you’re right… but… Makkachin’s never been good at resisting food. She’ll probably eat it all at once and then have nothing left! This is all my fault, I left without explaining I – I shouldn’t have-”

“Hey, nothing you can do about it right now, okay? Not until your strong enough to leave the cave. So how about you focus on that first. The quicker the better, right? Nice and calm, yeah?” Almost immediately Viktor’s body relaxed and he went quiet. Yuuri had a moment of sheer panic. Had he accidentally programmed the poor alpha to respond to that specific command? Maybe… maybe, he should have thought this through a bit more. Of _course_ ordering around an alpha in rut was a bad idea, he can see that _now._ Did he rewired a certain part of his animal brain or-

“You’re right. Thankyou. I think I’m going to try and sleep now, if you don’t mind.” Yuuri instantly jerked to his feet, taking the two steps needed to be by the silver skater’s side. He leaned down to help the older man up to his feet.

“Of course, of course. Please, make yourself comfortable. Take all the time you need, okay?” Viktor nodded and leaned heavily on Yuuri. Strands of long hair brushed over the exposed skin of his collar bones, and the scent of an exhausted alpha greeted him. Yuuri very carefully kept his eyes from wondering over to the pliant man at his side – very stonily ignored the way Viktor has slung his arm over Yuuri’s shoulders and fisted his hand on the material over Yuuri’s heart.

As Yuuri helped lower the man into bed and started to pile blankets over him, trying his very best from giving in and fussing over his exhausted guest. Viktor used that hold he had across the shoulders to pull the smaller man close to him. Hot breath fanned across his skin first, then came the gentle brush of lips on his cheek.

“Thankyou,” Viktor whispered, before letting go of his martial arts grade hold and flopping down into the furs. Yuuri stuttered something about having a good sleep before creeping away at high speeds back to the fire-place. The man made sure to be absolutely silent as he screamed in horror over the coals.

What the fuck was that? A kiss on the cheek? In thanks for the meal, or for everything else. Everything _everything_ or just everything? Yuuri’s own _mother_ never kissed him so casually. Was this just one of those cultural things, or was it his solitary nature rearing its ugly head?

He distracted himself with setting Viktor’s empty bowl and spoon aside with the pan and knife. His own bowl was untouched, and so he left it there by the coals for Viktor to eat later. It would be cold, but he found his replica-katsudon tasted as nice cold as it did hot.

In the winter he hardly ate. Just a turnip, potato or bowl of rice every three days or four. Keeping his intake low helped him sleep longer, sometimes twenty hours at a time, which helped him survive the boredom of waiting for winter to pass. The nutrients he got from the hot springs were enough to keep him healthy on such a poor diet.

This all meant he didn’t have much food. He was lucky to have these ingredients stored, simply because he never knew when a craving for katsudon would hit him and Yuuri always liked to be prepared but… did he have enough food to feed an alpha recovering from a rut? They ate a lot, he knew, and then if he stayed even longer? Would Yuuri be eaten out of cave and home before a break in the weather came along? What would Viktor think if he noticed Yuuri’s eating patterns? Would he figure out he was part-daemon? Would he be repulsed? Would he try to kill Yuuri, undoing all the omega’s hard work to associate himself as a friendly presence to Viktor’s instincts while the man was blacked out in rut.

Oh dear.

He gathers the dirty cooking equipment in his arms and tip-toes off to a separate cave chamber that the pools empty out in. Maybe if he just focuses on scrubbing the cooking pan clean under the stream, then enlightened will strike him.

Enlightenment dose not strike. He then spends an hour watching Viktor sleep like a creep before stripping down and going back into the hot springs.

Maybe some plan will occur to him through the mediative insight of soaking in thermal bliss.

Meditation, however, dose not come. He’s too on edge, and the scent of Viktor in his cave worries at his instincts until he feels like he’s going to snap. He soaks in the springs for hours, mind drifting in and out of deep thought, eyes half lidded. He wonders when Viktor will wake up.

All this time to think means he is free to replay the events of the last few days in tortuous detail.

_Shit. I didn’t realise he was in rut._

_The faintest of scents cling to the insides of the alpha’s clothes, if it weren’t for that, Yuuri never would have noticed – not until it was too late, at least. Viktor is cold and unconscious, his body halfway to shutting down. He’s a popsicle… it’s likely being in rut is the only thing keeping him from flying dangerously close to death._

_Yuuri scoops water from the springs and washes it over the alpha’s skin, getting his body warm enough to not sting or go into some form of shock when lowered into the water. Working quickly, Yuuri washes and rubs down the unconscious man, hands shaking less when the skin no longer feels like frost under his fingers._

_His muscles are still complaining from the effort of dragging the larger man down here, but they manage to lift him up one last time. Yuuri enters the warmest of his pools with Viktor in his arms. The omega situates the man – a man he has never shared a word with – against the rock edge and hovers beside him, ready to catch should he slump over and ready to run should he wake up aggressive._

_I'm an idiot. This is all my fault.'Yuuri scolds himself while brushing Viktor’s hair back from his face. Of course discovering his presence on his territory would trigger Viktor. Having a stranger living unopposed on his territory was a threat to his hold on the land, it was a threat to the safety of his family – a family who must be worried sick. What if Viktor died because of Yuuri’s self-centered decision? His mate would be without an alpha, and his son without a father. Stupid, stupid, stupid._

_Yuuri continued to scoop water over Viktor, washing the skin that wasn’t submerged. His shoulders, his neck, his face. The alpha’s ears were so very, very cold._

_Slowly the pallor started to leave Viktor’s pale skin. His cheeks grew rosy and the tips of his ears and nose went red. Even his soft lips seemed to gain colour as blood circulation improved. He seemed to be on the brink of regaining consciousness, which gave Yuuri both good and bad feelings. Eyelids fluttered with movement but were yet to open, and his breathing was becoming deep and irregular._

_Yuuri slipped from the pool, intent to go and put some clothes on before the alpha woke up. However, just as he left the water and took his hands-off Viktor, the larger man startled awake._

_Pheromones filled the air, like someone had been holding a wet blanket over a fire all this time. The shock of being assaulted by Viktor’s scent made him move before he had time to think about it, slapping his hand over the nape of the alpha’s neck as if he meant to cover the glands back up and smother the scent until the cave air was clean again._

_Feeling the muscles tense under his hand made Yuuri’s hair stand on end. That’s right, he was awake now. He had gotten so used to the cold laxness of the unconscious Viktor that the alive version was now unfamiliar._

_His automatic reaction to cover the scent up was due to one tiny little detail; Viktor affected him. The fresh scent of the alpha in any state was enough to rouse Yuuri’s inner omega and all its horny desires._

_Unfortunately, it did not seem like he was being cut any slack, cause his body was reacting just the same as it always has since that first winter he spent here, ‘nesting’ with Viktor as far as his instincts were concerned. Now the alpha he had been ‘nesting’ with all these years was close by, and in rut no less…_

_Oh dear. It’s just a pseudo-heat, just six hours of being a horny mess. Nothing too terrible, no loss of control or anything. He can do this. He can be responsible. Yuuri look a large breath and started to speak as softly as he could._

_“I found you up near the entrance. Nearly dead from exposure. You’re lucky your body is in rut right now…  I don’t think you would have made it through the night, I…” Viktor sighed and relaxed under Yuuri’s hand, the small sound and movement the only indication he was awake. Yuuri couldn’t see his face like this, crouching unprepared behind the alpha. He could feel the rut scent rippling and getting stronger, the anger and desires of it thickening the air. The newly awaken omega in Yuuri lapped it up, every last drop of it. Something was screaming for him to do something… submit, present, bite, gain the alpha’s attention, keep his attention._

_“I’m sorry I made you do this. I’m an idiot, I know, and I’m sorry. I swear I’ve never taken game from your territory, I swear it.” Yuuri fought hard not to dig his nails into the soft skin of Viktor’s neck, voice dangerously close to drifting into a pitiful whine._

_“If I knew your instincts would drive you to dig me out before spring I never would have…” the scent of the rut buzzed with new energy, it wasn’t just tangy and salty now, it was smoky. Frustrated, angry. That’s right. Just because Viktor was here now didn’t mean his instincts to throw Yuuri off his territory were suddenly over. No._

_No this couldn’t be happening. Avoiding sex between them is the least of his problems now. In fact it might solve this new, scarier, problem. How did he go about saving his tender life? There was a high chance Viktor might straight up kill him if he doesn’t start running very fast very soon, and if he runs he dies in the blizzards. Die or die. This was definitely not where he wanted his life to go but here he was…_

_“I’ll leave in the spring. Instantly. Definitely. But not before then. You must understand, right? I won’t survive long out in this cold. The closest place I have to go is too far away. Please, Viktor?”_

_Please, something. Anything. All he got for his begging was frozen silence. It was like the alpha had managed to swap himself out for a masterfully carved chunk of rock. An idea occurred to Yuuri, that if he was deep enough into rut then he wouldn’t exactly be in the most lucid state of mind._

_“You can’t hear a word I’m saying right now, can you?” Fuck, fuck, shit, fuck. Yuuri was very quickly descending into fight or flight, his over simulated omega side not helping in the slightest. His hand had slide up into Viktor’s hair, and Yuuri agreed with his instincts that it was a good idea. Hair was a weak point he could use to his advantage should – no, when – he gets attacked. He needs to… he needs to…_

_Another strong wave of scent rolled off Viktor, and this time the alpha did more than breath shallowly. He shivered and huffed, the goosebumps that rose on his skin noticeable under Yuuri’s fingertips. Viktor attempted to raise his arms, making quite splashes that filled the anxious silence of the cave._

_“Hey? Calm, alright? Calm, calm, you can be calm. Calm…” Yuuri soothed like his life was on the line – because it was. He did his best to be nothing more but a non-threatening omega, in need of protection (what he would do for some protection right about now) and one hundred percent absolutely not someone the alpha could be feeling instincts of aggression towards. Alpha’s in rut were simple creatures, if he just kept patting Viktor’s hair and muttering softly, maybe he could turn this all around._

_Wet fingers clasped around Yuuri’s left hand, their hold tight and painful. Pure fear shot through Yuuri like diving into an icy lake. It felt like some sort of slimy ocean monster had bitten down on his hand, and the only way to get free was to chew through his own wrist._

_“No,” he choked as Viktor’s grip got only tighter. “Hey, just relax. Calm. Nice and calm. Deep breathes. Calm.” Was he talking to himself or the alpha? Yuuri watched as the muscles of Viktor’s back tensed and shifted, warning Yuuri that he was about to move. When the alpha spun around, Yuuri was ready, keeping as far away from Viktor’s other hand as possible – trying to stay free while also attempting to yank his other out of Viktor’s grip._

_The alpha was weak, two tugs being all Yuuri needed to free his hand. Viktor kept turning and Yuuri kept running away, slipping into the water and circling, hands going to Viktor’s shoulder blades were the other man couldn’t reach them, pushing on his back to get a good arm’s length between them._

_A growl filled the air. Dangerous and angry, getting louder with every second that went past._

_Distract him! Distract him now before he whips around and holds you under the water and you find out if you really can drown! A tiny part, the omega part, also had some thoughts to share as that low growl sent ripples across the surface of the water. Holy shit that’s hot. Reward him._

_Everything was happening so fast. He was close to hyperventilating. He acted on those sudden instincts, combining the two different urgers into a single action that complied to both. One hand left its place bracing against the alpha’s shoulder, and started a path downwards, tracing over the hip and slipping down the front of the other man’s body._

_“Let’s focus your mind on something else, okay?” Holy shit he hoped this worked. “You just stay nice and calm for me, okay?” The growling cut off with a choke as Yuuri’s fingers fluttered closer to their goal. It gave the omega a shot of much needed confidence. “Nice and still,” he whispered, eyes glued to the back of the aggressive alpha’s head._

_His hand finally found its place around hot flesh, already half stiff as he begun to feel out what he couldn’t see. Yuuri bit down a sigh of relief. If the rutting alpha was interested in being pleasured, then all wasn’t lost yet._

_As the saying goes, a bull by the nose ring, a rutting alpha by the cock. Once you’ve secured your hold on either, the beast its yours to command._

_If he could just keep him happy, then maybe Yuuri will come out of this unscathed._

_“Good alpha, good alpha, nice and quiet like that,” he complimented, lips mere centimeters above the skin of Viktor’s_ _back. He was covered in droplets of water that sometimes trailed down the valleys between muscles, along the channel of his spine. Yuuri wanted to lick them up._

_No. Don’t develop the moment further. It will confuse the alpha if he starts engaging in anything more than rubbing him off, Viktor might think it was a free-for-all and it really, really wasn’t…_

_Then Viktor shuddered and leaned forward, resting his head on to the edge of the pool. What was he doing?! This was not making Yuuri’s task easier of providing a completely-for-distracting-you-purposes-not-related-to-my-obsession-for-you-at-all-rub._

_Did he not sense that Yuuri himself was coming down quickly, like a fever, with high-strung desire. Did he not realise he wasn’t the only one erect right now? Did he not have the awareness that he was leaning over in front of another man – a man who was currently engaged in rubbing him off? What the hell?! He was just one clumsy thrust away from burying his dick inside Viktor and… gosh wouldn’t that be a shock for the poor alpha? Would that shock him out of the rut or get him_ really _angry?_

_Stop thinking so much Yuuri. Remember the mission. Appease him, treat him well, be a perfect example of an omega so his instincts stop categorising you as a threat. Earn your stay here. Right, okay? You can do this._

_Viktor started to whine under him, hips bucking up weakly into Yuuri’s hand._

_“Shhh, keep nice and quiet for me. Okay? You’re doing such a good job.” That was the key to controlling alphas, rewarding them, complimenting them, making them think they were in control by centering everything around him. “So calm. So obedient. Do you like what I’m doing for you?” That was answered by the wrecked groan the alpha made, echoing all over the cave. He had turned his head to one side, giving Yuuri a small view of his face. He had such a pretty flush to his cheeks now, and Yuuri bizarrely found Viktor adorable in that moment. “I’ll take that as a yes?”_

_He really should have thought first before opening his mouth. The air around them instantly soured with aggression – aggression that had slowly and steadily been weakening over the course of the last minute and a bit. Those beautiful muscles of Viktor’s back tensed and rolled again, the alpha flinched and got about a fifth of the way through straightening and turning around before Yuuri slammed him back down into the rock in a panic._

_Shit! What to do, what to do? Alright, punish the behaviour. That’s right, punish, then be clear about what the alpha needs to do if they want to be rewarded. Like training a dog._

_Yuuri gripped just a bit too hard on the base of Viktor’s cock. He leaned more of his weight onto the elbow that dug between the other man’s shoulder blades._

_“Now that’s not very well behaved of you,” he chastised gently. “If you want me to continue, you’ve got to be nice and calm for me, okay? Quiet and calm. Gentle. Be a good alpha and let me do this for you. Let me please you, okay? Don’t interrupt me. Keep very still and very calm. Calm.” He resumed his stroking. “Calm… calm.” Associating the word with the movement of his hand. Being calm meant being rubbed off. Being ruffed off meant being calm. If seemed to be working, since Viktor’s tensed body went limp bit by bit under him, his head flopping back down into the cradle of his bound arms._

_The cave was quiet except for the soft splashes caused by Yuuri’s arm moving up and down. Viktor seemed to have taken his order for quiet seriously, not even a whine or a moan coming from him. It was almost like he’d become unconscious again._

_Then he feels it. The tension of muscles along his back, the growth of a noticeable knot at the base, the jerk of the cock in his hold._

_“There’s a good alpha,” he praises for no fucking reason at all. Why did he say that? Positive reinforcement, maybe, but Yuuri’s terrified he’s given his own self a complex now as Viktor comes while the words pass Yuuri’s lips._

_The orgasm lull surrounds Viktor. Soft, blissful, satisfied, a bit dazed. This was Yuuri’s time to move, while the alpha was most approachable. Suggestible, even._

_“Can I stay the winter?”_

_No response._

_“I’ll do whatever you want… alpha.” He expected that sentence to have an impact. He designed it to be unfairly tempting. Words that could unravel the beautiful man under him. Instead it got nothing but the same laboured breathing._

_Viktor’s scent wasn’t calming down and accepting him. It still hung like dirty smoke around Yuuri, heavy with the tang of rut and the left-over of arousal. Yuuri gasped as he felt it snap around him, a burst of aggression and intention so sudden that for a moment, he crumbled under it._

_Viktor spun around in the water, splashing filling the cave as he lunged._

_Yuuri looked into the other man’s eyes. He still remembers their true colour (would never forget, really) that beautiful blue. An alpha’s eyes tended to lighten when they went into rut. Viktor’s natural eye colour was so light already that his rut had paled them into a soft grey._

_It helped to see those eyes. To notice how fogged over and clouded they were. How his pupils weren’t really focused correctly. The wrong colour. It helped separate this Viktor from the other. Helped Yuuri gain the courage to do what he needed to do. To survive._

_When worst comes to worse, and there is no other options, then there is only one last card to play. Dominate the Alpha. Make them submit. The other man’s instincts will bleed away after that in the wake of submitting to Yuuri._

_The omega was at a bit of a disadvantage here, with Viktor being in rut and hyper-aggressive. On the other hand, he was also at an advantage. The alpha had yet to regain his full strength, and had his hands bound. Yuuri was reasonably confident, that if he just believed in his acting ability enough, he could do this._

_Viktor’s bound hands found their way around Yuuri’s neck, grasping him and yanking him closer._

_“No.” The loud growl made Viktor freeze, eyes flittering around as if looking for some other alpha. “Let go. Back down.”_

_The cave filled with Yuuri’s growls, the echoing only helping him against the disorientated alpha. His fingers pressed tighter around Yuuri’s neck and collarbone, head tilting down to glare at him through a veil of silver hair._

_Yuuri quickly checked where his feet there, flat on the bottom of the hot-springs, and where his centre of balance was, before diving at Viktor. He had the man pinned back against the ledge easily, there really was little to no strength left in Viktor’s body._

_He grabbed a fistful of that beautiful hair, right up close to the scalp so he could force the alpha’s head back, exposing his neck. There was a brief moment of push back, the strength in it more than Yuuri expected but nowhere near enough to throw him off. He briefly realised that he was straddling the alpha’s lap, but pushed it from his mind as soon as it arrived._

_“You going to be good for me now?” To make extra sure of his dominating hold on the alpha, Yuuri's other hand went down to grip around the popped knot of Viktor's cock. An incredibly sensative part of the body, just lightly scrapping his nails across it could be considered a torture technique. Viktor went absolutely rigged under Yuuri, a part of him able to realise the hand wasn't there for pleasure anymore._

_Yuuri had made alphas submit to him before, he just hadn’t done it to one he had been miserably pinning over for years. It was proving a bit distracting. Releasing the right scent was becoming harder and harder as his white-knuckle grip started to slip. He needed to do this quickly, and then put some badly needed space between them._

_“Submit to me.”_

_What happened next threw Yuuri into a moment of pure shock. The alpha whimper at his order, closing his grey eyes and voluntarily stretching his head every further back, exposing more of his creamy skin. The alpha’s scent immediate yielded into the pleasing waft of submission, neck rolling to position his scent gland more prominently. The glands looked irritated and swollen, the skin over them red and blotchy like the colour a slap left in its wake._

_Yuuri felt like something else had taken control of his body as he untangled a hand from silver hair and ghosted over the gland that was being offer to him. The submission was strongest there, scent flooding the cave fast, overriding and neutralising every other pheromone in the air like it was evolved to do._

_Yuuri rubbed circles around the scent gland, eyes wide blown on the high of getting another to submit. His other hand started to distractedly fondle Viktor's knot, causing the other to fall into a pattern of constant, needy, whines. His fingers stopped with their circling and instead all attention was given to gently rubbing over the scent gland, eager to smell what scents he disturbed there. Yuuri had no desire to stop himself at this point. He would have kept going to the end. Whatever the ‘end’ was. If it wasn’t for the alpha’s reaction at Yuuri rubbing his gland… who knows if he would have ever snapped out of it._

_The other man convulsed under Yuuri, eyes flying open and gazing up with unshed tears in his wide eyes. He practically wailed when Yuuri’s fingers froze in their circular motion, lips parting as if he was trying to speak._

_Yuuri very slowly started to draw away. After every inch of space he would study the other man’s features, worried beyond measure that he had somehow managed to break the alpha. Did it hurt alpha’s to submit while in rut? Was Viktor currently spiraling down into a pit of self-hatred at his own perceived weakness? Had Yuuri snapped the poor man’s mind? Yuuri started pulling his hand carefully from the other’s hair. There was whimper._

_“Please…” the alpha barely managed to form through a hoarse voice. Please what? Please what?!_

_Yuuri felt like kicking himself when he realised what the alpha wanted. He was scared of Yuuri, of course he would be. In such a weak and vulnerable state, and on top of that being made to submit to a stranger in their home, in a place that was unfamiliar to you, one you weren’t sure how to leave… setting out to meet a challenger and in turn being dominated by the stranger would make Viktor feel like he had just lost his home and territory in one fell swoop._

_“I’m not going to hurt you,” Yuuri reassured the man as he backed up slowly, hands coming up in front of him in a placating gesture. “Just stay here and enjoy the hot springs, okay? I’m going to go get some food for you to eat, and then I’ll leave you alone, okay?”_

_There was a long moment where nothing happened. The alpha just continued to lay there against the edge, looking absolutely ruined to the roots but unfairly gorgeous. Slowly, eventually, Viktor gave him a very, very, small nod._

_Yuuri quickly jumped from the hot spring and scuttled to the other side of the chamber. Here he was hidden behind the rocks and felt it okay to collapse into his nest in absolute exhaustion as the adrenaline left his body in a rush._

_Space. Space was good. Many, many meters of space. Kilometres of space._


	3. After Winter

-

после зимы (after winter)

-

Viktor woke up feeling a little bit overheated, largely hungry, and mainly confused. He seemed to be sprawled on his belly under furs, mouth dry, ankles entangled by some woollen sheet, eyes bleary and sandy. Groaning and stretching, a blanket he hadn’t realised was over his head dropped aside. Dark walls greet him, cueing even more confusion. Wha? His den looks off kilter. Did he roll off into some corner?

Viktor flops back down into the furs and draws them around him. Ergh, his muscles hurt. While tentatively trying to stretch and locate his sorest points, Viktor feels a stringing on the skin of his back that feels like angry scratches. Had he fallen asleep on top of some small sharp object or... what? Pushing knotty hair back from his face, Viktor bravely made to roll out of bed.

He discovered it was cold and immediately rolled back. Not unusual. Viktor being the lonely hermit he was usually didn’t find it in himself to bother with keeping the den warm, constantly feeding a fire stove was just too much effort. What was unusual, however, was that Makkachin wasn’t tucked up warm in his arms. That was when it struck him - logically, one could assume he was in _someone else’s_ den.

Viktor’s body tensed, going from sleepy to high alert so fast it hurt. His muscles flared in pain while his thoughts raced so fast they tripped over themselves. Eyes which had only peeled open the barest amount were now wide and roving around, trying to take in every detail he had missed before. A ceiling of rock, furs he didn’t recognise, the smell of an unnameable combination of metallics, decay, dampness, and human presence. Was he someone’s prisoner? A hostage? No, who would they be ransoming him to? That didn’t make sense. Had he been drugged? Some people got off on making alpha’s submit to them, on tearing down the most dominating dynamic into a meek form of themselves - had he been taken to be someone’s bed warmer? Was this the bed? He was warming it, _shit._

Viktor sat up in alarm, one hand clutching a blanket to his chest as if to shield his young virginal body. He was on high alert, ready for a fight, ready to claw the eyes out of anyone he so much as sensed. Instincts were weak after a rut but he could feel the faint presences of them now, riling up for a fight, demanding he assert himself in this unfamiliar situation. Wait… after a rut?

That’s right, he had just gone through a rut. Viktor’s eyes landed on a fireplace near a far wall and the memories came rushing back. He collapsed in a boneless heap, the relief of remembering he was in a hospitable omega’s nest, a kind omega who made delicious food and had beautiful eyes and soft skin… oh thank god.

With the disorientation gone, all that was left was relief and hunger. That was what woke him, Viktor realises, the burning pit that was his stomach grinding and gurgling out for food like a swamp gremlin. Drawing one of the warmer blankets over his shoulders, Viktor heroically leaves the safety of the nest to go sniff around the dead coals of the fire and the bags. He could smell familiar roots, potatoes and turnips and assorted stuff, along with the cleaner starchy scent of rice. The omega had feed him rice last time. It had tasted alright – better than when Lilia cooked it that one time. There were more distinctive smells amongst the food stores as well. Dried fish, tea leaves, honey and… was that Sauerkraut?

Viktor rubs at the grit in his eyes and plonks down by the fire were an unattended bowl of the same heavenly meal from before sits. He spared a moment to feel guilty about eating his hosts food without permission before the desire to consume and restore took over. It was cold, a set of different flavours because of that, but it was still delicious. As he was polishing off the last of it, Viktor realised that the fact there was a spoon helpfully resting on the top of the bowl probably meant the omega intended for him to eat it.

Once his stomach was satisfied came the tough part. Viktor gazed into the coals while trying to figure out how to proceed from here. He had made an arse of himself by making an unsolicited visit to a local omega while in rut, highly presumptuous and rude. Thankfully it seems the rutting version of him took rejection well and didn’t attack the poor omega or do anything too… forceful. And now he’s being nursed back to health.

Honestly his mind envisioned a lot of different ways the meeting with the omega could have gone, but being flat out rejected and then mothered like some baby alpha was not one of them. That’s how they see him, a child, something to be pitied and fawned over because he couldn’t look after himself. Viktor was just starting to nudge past his prime, yet didn’t have a mate or children to speak of. He knows what that looks like to outsiders. A failure. Undesirable. Obviously this omega didn’t see him as he was, they saw him as something smaller and weaker, someone they would never entertain the notion of taking as a mate. Someone they thought needed help. Needed to be nurtured.

If he could just die of shame right now, that would be nice. Viktor covered his face with his hands and groaned, clawing at his eyelids none too gently to get rid of the grit and scratch away the last of sleep. He brought gifts with him to try and impress the omega, good gifts he thought for sure would – wait a minute.

Viktor looked around the cave and tried to remember if he ever did present his gifts to the omega.

Maybe. If anything else he would have food to replace what he’s eaten of the omegas. He remembers packing in cuts of meat, hell, there was a whole elk up there, frozen under the snow, that he could butcher and gift to the omega. In apology, of course. Not a bad idea. Not a bad idea at all. Viktor got up, dusted himself off and tried to wrap himself in dignity he no longer had. He was going to do his very best to turn this situation around – to prove that he was a strong alpha, that he would make a good mate for the omega. First step was to provide.

Viktor didn’t actually know the way out of the cave. He found a small side cave that stored more goods, bags he wasn’t noisy enough to look inside and piles of firewood. Viktor had bought firewood with him that one time, branches he had collected off the ground on his way to the mountain. Compared to the precisely chopped wood the omega had horded away by the sleigh load, he realised his offer looked a bit pathetic in comparison. Curses. He also found another tunnel that was being used as the privy. That was good to know, right now his body was in the post-rut recovery period, digesting every last bit of the food and water he was consuming, but sooner or later he’ll need to take a piss at least. He didn’t want to have to disturb the omega to ask where abouts he should relieve himself.

Coming back out into the area by the nest once again, Viktor went in the direction he had been avoiding all this time – the direction he could smell the omega was in, where the pools of hot water were. He crept around slowly on the toes of his boots, trying to enter the largest section of the cavern unnoticed. His eyes zeroed in on the omega straight away. The cave was dim and dark, yes, but Viktor had good night-vision like all alphas, and there were clusters of glow worms on the roof of the cave giving off the dimmest of light to see by.

The skin of the omega seemed to shimmer like the moon, pale and bright against the darkness. His tousled hair had a faint sheen to it, like the omega had ducked his head underwater and it was only now drying off. His back was to Viktor, with his arms folded on the edge of the pool and his head resting on top of them. His breathing was deep and slow, the angels of his back and a few old scars seeming to glisten with the movement. Since the omega was looking away, Viktor allowed himself to openly appreciate the view. Shoulders bunched up and creating dimples in his skin, the perfect way he carried extra weight across his ribs, the trail of his spine disappearing into the pool allowing the imagination to be used to wonder what lay exposed underneath the thin veil that was the water.

Viktor’s hands itched to touch, to grab, to be a greedy alpha like everyone always says he is, but he didn’t. Something stopped him, a little pull inside that shielded away at being so bold with this creature. Like he wouldn’t dare… couldn’t dare. The omega was being quite clear in where the boundaries were between them. Viktor was in the nest, the omega was out here in the pools. Far away. Uninterested in sharing space. Choosing to sleep against the side of the rock rather than share furs with Viktor. He did not join Viktor in the nest, so Viktor should not join him in the pools. Especially not creeping in while his guard was down.

There were two exit ways on this end of the chamber. One was angled up with weak light coming from it, and the other down and dark. Viktor hedged his bets and went with the upwards one. It took some climbing and walking to reach the entrance way. He was impressed the omega had managed to carry his unconscious lump of a body all the way down. Likely that was what the scratches on his back were from – being dragged across the sharp rocks of the tunnel floor. Viktor dug away at the snow that blocked the exit, crawling out and gritting his teeth against the cold morning that seemed to be trying to shove him back inside. Several attempts were made at locating where, underneath all this bloody snow, he left his stuff.

While pawing around blindly his nose picked up the barest scent of the elk’s frozen body. He burrowed down like a squirrel after its seedpods, fingers clasping around a leg and yanking on it to haul the large beast out in increments. Leg, shoulder, other leg, antlers, head, torso, (take a break, complain about it not being this heavy last time), hindquarters, hind legs. Viktor then tried to wrestle the elk sized icicle into the cave. That did not happen, so he had to start digging out the entrance again. Eventually he hit a point that was wide enough to let the carcass in if he angled and contorted it just right. Its antlers got jammed between the rocks when he wasn’t paying enough attention to what the head was doing. That was hell to fix, but finally he managed to yank the beast through. He took it a few meters down the tunnel and lay it over a reasonably flat section of stone. It needed to thaw out before he could start skinning it, but not thaw so much it was a race to eat the meat before rot set in. This was several months’ worth of food here – he didn’t want any part of it to go to waste. Just inside the cave’s entrance was the perfect temperature for both these requirements.

Now that he had located the elk, he could roughly remember where he put his bag down in relation to it and managed to dig that up too without nearly as much trouble. It’ll take half a day for the elk to thaw, so he had time to while away. Viktor shoulders the bag and climbs back down into the cave system. He settles down next to the quiet fire pit and slowly starts unpacking the contents meticulously.

He would be lying if he didn’t acknowledge that being a guest in the omega’s nest, moving freely around where he slept – _while he slept_ – was doing all sorts of comforting things to Viktor’s instincts. Uncomfortable things? When was the last time someone had invited him in and trusted him? Not for a long time. Not since he moved out of his parent’s den, a newly presented alpha no longer allowed onto other’s territories. Not young enough to be a child anymore, not weak enough to be dismissed by other alphas as a ‘non-threat’ anymore. That was just the way it was. Not even old Yakov lets him get close to his and Lilia’s den. Viktor helping out with the herd was fine, but Viktor right in his inner sanctum? His den, which he shared with his mate and had raised children in? Forget it.

Anticipating that he’ll be starving soon enough, Viktor sets about building a fire. What should he cook? Something for both him and the omega. Maybe the smell of food will bring the other man over to him, and then Viktor can circumnavigate the minefield of should-I-approach-you-or-stay-away-whats-the-right-amount-of-distance-again?

From the bag he pulls out one of two geese, intact with feathers and all. He sets about plucking it while he waits for the fire to grow into a steady blaze. Once that’s done, he takes a ceramic cooking pan that was sitting close to the firepit and sets it aside to wait for the fire to produce some hot coals. He cleans out the insides of the bird, cutting out the rich organs and chopping them into a rough mince on the pan where they wait. He then gets a clove of garlic from his bag and dices that up too.

Usually about now he’ll feed the intestines and neck of the bird to Makkachin. Viktor stirs the garlic into the mince and wonders how she’s doing. Logically she should be fine, they’ve been separated longer before, and she’s not helpless. It is just that… she is honestly all he’s got.

Viktor occupies himself by seeing what other food his rut-affected mind had packed. The other goose, slices of the taimen he had caught while ice fishing just before winter and the pickled mushrooms he had been saving for a special occasion. Viktor was impressed with what he had put in here, considering how much other, lesser, options he had stored away at his den. There must have been some level of awareness when he was jamming stuff away in the bag.

Along with these was a smaller sack with peppers, garlic and a bundle of salty fern. A jar of chren sauce, a wrapped bundle of sheep cheese he had gotten off Yakov in autumn, and a jar of mead he traded four sea-otter pelts for at the summer craft festival.

He gets a long stick and started poking at the fire, rolling a decent collection of red coals to the side. He arranged them and placed the ceramic pan on top, ears pricking when the unmistakable sound of sizzling food started.

Viktor got two bowls and two spoons from the same spot the ceramic pan had been stacked. He placed them neatly by the fireside, as if that might summon the omega over.

He then moved on to slicing up the goose’s dark meat, preparing the meat for the pan. The mince was cooked through once he finished the task, so he scrapped the mince into the bowls. In doing that, Viktor noticed bits had burnt to the surface of the pan.

Time for the trusty combination of fermented honey and beer. He poured just enough of the mead to coat the bottom of the pan, the liquid hitting the ceramic without a loud sizzle. Hmm, it should have made a louder noise. Viktor quickly tapped his fingertips against the ceramic and found it warm rather than the hot needed for cooking. He set about poking and rolling fresh coals out from the fire and swapping out the cooling coals. Viktor then lay the pan down and filled it with the first pieces of goose meat, and since he was cracking open the mead, he might as well pull some of his pickled mushrooms out and fry them too.

He cooked the goose until the skin was seared, then flips it over and cooks for another ten moments or so. He poured more mead over the cutlets to make sure nothing else started sticking to the pan. The smell was making him droll, so he ate one or two while sitting by the fire pit.

Soon enough everything was done. He took the pan off and rolled the coals back into the flames, and then sat expectantly looking at the two bowls piled high with food… that might make it a bit hard to eat, so he put the ceramic pan down on the ground and filled it up with the surplus of food until the bowls held a more manageable volume.

He sat, well behaved, for about two moments before he realised having a meal ready was a perfect excuse to go over to omega and initiate conversation. Gathering all his courage and charm, Viktor got to his feet and shuffled into the next chamber. The omega wasn’t asleep – he wasn’t even in the pool anymore – well, his feet were, but the rest of him was sitting on the edge clothed in that woollen robe shawl he seemed quite fond of.

Those beautiful eyes tracked him, looking dark and expectant.

Of course they looked dark, they were inside a cave.

“I’ve made a meal,” Viktor announced from across the pool. The omega blinked, face blank of any other reaction.

“I know. I can smell it.”

“I made some…” Viktor tried not to look like he was at a loss four words into a conversation. “Some for you, too.”

The omega’s perfect pink lips parted, an expression of what Viktor interpreted as a tired sigh.

“Okay…” he got up from the pool edge and walked around. Viktor never noticed how silent the omega’s footsteps were until now, or how he was half a head shorter.

He took that as the cue to led his host to the food. Never in his life had he felt so consciously aware of his every movement. It felt like he was going to trip over and fall on his face any second now, how did one walk again, why was walking rapidly becoming so unnatural?

Somehow, against all odds, he made it back to the fireside and settled down in its warmth. Viktor was in his under-furs and fleece thermals, his boots and bulky winter overcoat folded up a few meters off… but the omega was just in that robe thing. He must get cold quickly outside of the hot springs, Viktor should – Viktor should get him a blanket and wrap it around him!

Viktor managed to physically restrain himself from doing that by stuffing his mouth full of food and chewing like Makkachin’s life depended on it.

“What did you use?” The question was asked very softly. Viktor looked up to where the omega was standing a few meters off from the fireplace. His face was creased in confusion. Viktor swallowed his food down and licked at his canines before opening his mouth up.

“Goose mainly,” he chirped, “bit of garlic, a few pickled mushrooms – have you tried pickled mushrooms? You should! I put two in your bowl, they’re delicious. Oh, I’ve also got…” Viktor broke off as he leaned over to his bag and dug around for the jar of chren sauce. “This,” he exclaimed while holding it up in the air proudly.

“Oh, where did this come fro-”

“Sit down, sit down, try some, and then try some with this. It’s қышқыл.” The omega hovered in the air.

“I don’t know that word,” he looked guilty for some reason.

“It’s like a harsh version of spicy.” He tapped his chin and tried to think of other ways to describe қышқыл. “Vinegar, but not that bad. Dose that explain it?”

“Yeah, a little. I’ll just eat it and find out what қы…шқыл… tastes like, shall I?”

“Sounds good,” Viktor smiled like a fool. The omega had settled down across from him and picked the bowl up. He was beyond happy right now. Step 1: Provide, accomplished!

Step 2: Charm into becoming his mate and live the rest of their lives together.

Seemed straight forward enough. Viktor must have glazed over a bit as he planned how he was doing to go about that, because he was startled back to present day by the omega’s quiet voice.

“I thought you’d have cooked with stuff from my stores. I, ah, don’t have a large variety of stuff and was worried…” he trailed off, staring down into his bowl. Viktor shuffled awkwardly as the quiet stretched on.

“That feels a bit rude, to go around cataloguing your belongings.” He added a cute chuckle to the end, as if that could lighten up the atmosphere on its own.

“Well, I’m on your territory. Technically this is all yours for the taking.” The omega peeked at him from under his lashes.

 _Don’t stay stuff like that._ He internally screamed in terror as his alpha rumbled, delighted at the omega’s admission that everything here was his for the taking. He wondered if the omega was including himself in that, because, technically, he _was_ included in that.

“Yes, well, yes that’s…. but it’s not like you’re being a burden on my territory, I hardly use this land, no one would normally use this land, I mean… you’re just here for the winter, aren’t you?” He tried to look busy placing a piece of goose from the pan into his bowl.

“Yes. I’ll leave as soon as the snows stop.”

“Oh no, it’s perfectly alright! No need to hurry along like that. You’ve been so polite and taken good care of me, I think you deserve to have the favour returned. It will be my pleasure to extend my hospitality to you through to spring. It’s only fair. In apology.” The omega squeaked, his eyes wide.

“That’s very kind, but won’t, ah, I be in the way during spring?” Viktor kept his soft smile firmly in place as he tried to figure out what the fuck the omega was talking about. When he couldn’t come up with an answer within the time it took for the gap in conversation to feel awkward, he daintily raised one eyebrow, silently asking for the omega to elaborate.

“Won’t attachments get in the way? Spring is when children are born and… that can be quite a stressful time for everyone, even if there is no child on the way… instincts are still primed for it so…” the omega trailed off and opted for shoving a spoonful of mince into his mouth.

Did they think Viktor was going to get attached to them, just because they would be the only one around. Did they think Viktor was that desperate and lonely?

Yeah, well… they actually had a good point.

Winter was all about storing up food and hibernation. It was where you curled up together with the partner you had courted in the summer, said partner now heavy with child, and simply slept the days away, saving up energy for the arrival of the child in spring. Normal instincts were generally lower in winter, replaced by lethargy and a need to cuddle.

Cue the reason Viktor gets so depressed around winter, also cue the reason he got Makkachin in the first place. She was great for cuddling. So the omega had a good point – if Viktor was as keyed up by the omega’s presences as he was on winter instincts, then what would he be like on _spring_ instinct? Territorial, possessive, swinging between patrolling the territory for hours to make sure it was secure and safe enough for a new born, and never letting the partner out of sight for a single second because of all the terrible things that might happen if they so much as put an arms length of space between them.

So Viktor might get clingy, he can see that now, and this omega was obviously a traveller, which did not make for a good combination. The omega might try to leave, Viktor might get aggressive, there might be a dominance fight, and if Viktor won, he knew right now what he would do when high off winning a dominance fight, with a submissive omega before him. What happens will be what always happens. He had been planning on courting the omega slowly and carefully, so as not to scare him off. That was not what he would call slowly and carefully. That was a sure-fire way to build a wall of resentment between them and never see this heavenly creature ever again. That was rude, and cruel, and Viktor was better than that.

“I see,” he admitted weakly. The omega paused in scrapping up the last of the food in his bowl, gorgeous brown eyes making Viktor’s heart skip a beat. Many beats. Maybe it stopped altogether. “True I might be a bit… over bearing…. during the height of spring, but as long as you don’t come near my den I think I should be fine, and when I’m in a particular mood you can just distance yourself. That should be fine.”

The omega cocked their head to the side and chewed on the end of his wooden spoon, looking to be in deep thought. “I don’t even know your name,” Viktor spoke it under his breath, loud but hushed because he had only realised it then. A little bit of a shock accompanying the thought, or was it a thrill? What was the omega’s name? Said omega cutely bounced the edge of the spoon against his pink lips.

“Katsuki,” he pronounced, his lips curling at the ends into a slight smile. Viktor relished the sound of the unusual word, a name that suited the traveller so perfectly.

“Katsuki? I’m Viktor of the Nikiforovs.” He held out his hand, as was customary, without thinking. He just realised that his outstretched wrist might be riding a bit too close to being an invasion of Katsuki’s personal space when the omega reached out in turn. He lightly circled his thumb over the scent gland on the inside of Viktor’s wrist before pulling back.

It was all very customary, something he had done thousands of times before. The person with the higher social status holds out their arm in greeting, and the other rubs at their wrist, coating the tips of their fingers in the oil off the scent gland. It was an altered version of the greeting ceremonies that happen within the more crowded lands, where packs were large and territories bordered each other. It served the purpose of the lower status member having a tangible stamp of approval on them. If they ever got asked what they were doing wondering though so-and-so’s territory, they could just use the scent that covered their fingers as evidence of so-and-so’s permission to be there.

It makes sense. It was practical. Traditional. Viktor has done this a thousand times. He had stretched his arm out first both because he was the one introducing himself and because this was his territory they were on.

The contact of the omega’s skin against his own made the hair at the nape of his neck stand on end. The brief, polite, circling of his scent gland made Viktor feel like someone had just stuffed a handful of snow down the back of his furs, the omega’s retreat leaving him cold and confused.

“Lovely to meet you, Viktor,” Katsuki grinned, looking entirely too innocent and naïve.

_I’m fucked._

They washed the cooking utensils together, Katsuki explaining how the hot springs flowed through the rock to here, where it then flowed on underneath the ground and disappeared. Probably ran into the big lake, Katsuki guessed, since the lake was deep enough to tap into the ground water. Viktor glowed in the knowledge that the lake he lived alongside possibly contain water privileged enough to brush against Katsuki’s bare skin. It was like they were fated to be together. Katsuki, a hot spring, who flowed into Viktor, a lake.

Give him a day or two and he’ll have that metaphor finely tuned into something that actually makes sense.

Viktor presented all the other gifts to Katsuki after that, and explained his plan for the elk that resided at the top of the tunnel. He said this was his way of apologising, that this was stuff he had been travelling with anyway. That the he omega deserved them in reward for his outstanding hospitality. The explanation did not stop Viktor preening at the sight of Katsuki sitting down surrounded by all the gifts, looking a bit overwhelmed. The bulk of it was clothes, stuff he had grown out of seasons ago but couldn’t get rid of due to its sentimental value.

A heavy outfit of reindeer. Tanned hide on the outside, all dove grey fur on the inside. Mila had been wearing it when she came down from the artic edge to visit her parents, and she had been continuing south afterwards. The south was too warm to keep the reindeer skin, Yakov and Lilia were too proud to accept a gift from their own daughter – the alpha idiots – so Viktor got the spoils instead. Mila had traded it from one of the northern tribes, with their tamed reindeer and sleighs. When you put on the three different parts of it, you could tell it was made by someone who knew what they were doing. It was unbelievably warm. Viktor couldn’t fit in it anymore, but the omega looked like just the right size.

Along with the reindeer outfit was a pair of gloves and a fur cap Viktor had made himself. The gloves were sewn from a mixture of sheep skin and sea otter, making them almost completely water proof. The cap was crafted from the white fox fur. It made the omega’s cheeks look so rosy when Viktor checked to see if it fit on Katsuki’s head comfortably.

There were two pairs of thermal trousers, crocheted from sheep fleece sourced from Yakov’s flock of demonic beasts. He called them sheep but Viktor wasn’t convinced. They kept interbreeding with the wild sheep species ever third generation or so. In Viktor’s humble opinion Yakov’s original domestic lambs had been breed out years ago. Now he just had a pack of unusually fluffy mountain goats.

It didn’t really matter that much to Viktor, as long as Lilia kept giving him a bale of the dark wool in thanks for helping shear them, then he was happy. No matter the cuts and bruises he sustained in said shearing. He could crochet things then, like thermal trousers. Tight enough to wear under layers of other fabrics and furs and thick enough to be worn on their own around the den.

There was also a belt of homespun yarn. Braided into the weave of the homespun were two pockets made from leather that hung on either side. The pockets were shaped perfectly to carry a knife inside, but they could also be tied off and used to hold smaller possessions should the omega ever need.

It didn’t hurt to have protection right there hanging around your waist, was all he was implying. Didn’t hurt at all. Helped to keep your hands free, if anything.

There was also a sash of red fabric. It was more festive and made for the warmer months, out of place amongst all the furs, but would probably look beautiful tied around the omega when he was dressed down in summer clothes. The white embroidery that adored it was an intricate pattern of stripes, leaves, cane motifs and varying faces of the moon. The symbol of a crescent moon in a diamond was used regularly and boldly in the needlework. Viktor wondered if he should tell the omega that was the mark of the Nikiforovs, and anyone he came across while wearing it would assume he was Viktor's…

Nah.

Last of the clothing was a desmona cape made from sable, black and beautiful. It was less of a winter item as well, more suited to the chilly breeze of spring or autumn then anything. It had been a favourite of his during the last year he spent in his parent’s den. The majority of it was black-dyed wool, the sable lining the inside, however at the cuffs and collar the fur was exposed, pelts speckled with grey and white flecks giving the cape a flair. It felt right to wrap it around the omega and button him into it, purring at the way Katsuki was now swallowed up in fur between the cap over his head and the cape. Much better than that thin grey robe.

The rest of the gifts were ornaments or weapons Viktor had crafted himself – sharpened spear heads and two thin knives made from flint. Great for slicing and skinning – or concealing under your clothes. Viktor had also carved a comb from antler, the handle of it engraved with traditional motifs of waterfowl and snakes. Katsuki looked generally over joyed when he spotted the fine-toothed creation, and had turned it over in his hands numerous times before setting it down.

There was a necklace. Made from yarn he had spun tight and rough, braided into a thicker and stronger string, the five different threads in the braid each a slightly different shade of brown. Viktor personally thought one of the threads matched the omega’s eyes disturbingly well. On the end of the looped braid was a canine-shaped stone he had found on the shore of a river last year. He likes collecting pretty stones and shells, back in his den he’s got a small basket full of them. This particular stone was dark green, with soft veins of white feathered across its surface, smoothed and polished from sitting in a river bed for a thousand years.

Last was an item of great importance, a dagger made from copper, something few knew how to make and even fewer could afford to banter for. Viktor had learned how to smelt copper from his mother, who descended from a tribe of metal-workers. When he took it to the shaman to get the daemon-toxic runes inscribed, they had done it for free since copper was so rare out in these lands it was almost a privilege to engrave upon it.

Viktor offered it to the omega silently, paying attention to the reaction. Some people didn’t like the look of a daemon-toxic weapons, or even the runes in general if they came across them carved into a rock or tree. It made them uneasy. People didn’t like to acknowledge the existence of daemons, dismissing it as myths, superstitions, people mistaken wolves with mange for the undead or some such nonsense.

Viktor doesn’t dismiss the talk of daemons. Not living for so long out here on his own, past the edge of settled land, on the edge of untouched forest and a sea that plummets down to ten thousand feet deep straight off the coast. Not when he nearly lost a leg at the age of fourteen to an Abaasy – he still has the scars to remind him.

Killing the Abaasy had won him a lot of respect amongst the packs his parents associated with. That was the reason he had to leave straight after presentation – it put too many people on edge to have a well-regarded alpha wondering around, without a territory, without a mate. The instincts to see him as a threat to what they had and chase him off were too much.

Viktor left home a lot younger than most. Too young, it truth. He hadn’t developed the instinct to mark a territory out and claim a mate yet. Instead, he was still formed like a child, a fully mature alpha yet to manifest inside him. It took about three years for all that to start, and by then he was nineteen summers old and thousands upon thousands of miles between him and his homeland. Viktor has seen more of the world than most, and of the world he saw, much of it was deep forests and vast grasslands, places empty of humans to avoid getting attacked. These human-less places were filled with daemons. Harmless daemons, friendly daemons, dangerous and killer daemons.

Katsuki takes the dagger carefully, letting just his thumb and forefinger touched the leather-bound handle of the dagger. He brings it up to his eyelevel and squints at the carvings, then, wordlessly, he puts it aside with the comb and necklace.

“What are you worried about?” Katsuki asks him quietly, referring to the very existence of the knife. Viktor thought travellers like Katsuki knew better. Maybe he only travels through populated parts of the earth?

“I worry about many things. Isn’t that my job as an alpha? To fret about things like this? My territory is wild and remote. It doesn't see many humans pass through. Sometimes I’ll come across a daemon or two. If you’re going to pass through these lands, I think you should have something like that. Just in case.”

“Okay. Thankyou.”

They don’t really talk after that. Viktor has a nap, and when he wakes up, Katsuki is in the store room rearranging his firewood. Viktor spends the rest of the day skinning and butchering the elk down to size. When he brings the fresh skin down into the tunnel, Katsuki is asleep in the nest. Viktor eats some quick food and washes the stickiness of blood and fat off him in the hot springs. He wakes up to Yuuri informing him there is an unusually quiet break in the weather, and he should decide if he’s going to leave now or risk leaving it to chance later. It isn’t until he hears the sound of Katsuki’s voice, asking him about what he wants, that he realises they hadn’t exchanged words in the forty hours between the gift giving and now. Had he scared him off with the gifts? Were they inappropriate? Or was this just the way Katsuki was, comfortable with the silence?

That was eight weeks ago. Two full rotations of the moon.

Viktor has weathered a whole new rut between then and now. He had made sure to lock his den's door up in a very complicated series of knots and locks his rut-hazed mind would never be able to figure out.

Viktor then discovered his rut-hazed mind has no problems ripping his own door off for the purposes of going out into snow drifts which reach above his head, realising there is simply no way in hell he was going anywhere, and returning back inside like a scolded child.

It's the last of winter now. Spring sitting like the pink of pre-dawn on the horizon. Viktor licks his chapped lips and sighs, breath misting around his face in the absence of any wind. The storms are gone, leaving what feels like a land frozen in time.

Everything is undisturbed. Delicate paw prints of a squirrel at the base of a tree, clear and clean in the crisp snow. Strings of husk where deer have stripped off the bark hang intact and conserved by the cold. Icicles on the underside of branches slowly dripping and melting, the patter of the droplets hitting the ground sometimes the only sound to be heard. There are snowflakes in Viktor’s eyelashes as he blinks against the rays of light scattering hazily inside the fog that lays over the land.

Undisturbed. Calm. Quiet. Alone.

Squeaks of an adventurous family of hares carry in the distance. Makkachin paces through the snow slowly, ears perked as she tries to figure out which direction the far-off hares are in.

To be able to emerge from your burrow, which you spent all winter tucked up warm with your family in, and play without a care in the snow. Is it bad he’s jealous of a hare?

Makkachin seems to think so. She’s turned back to him with a frustrated look in her dark eyes, tail wagging exactly twice before hanging down.

“What?” She boofs at him under her breath.

“We’re not having this conversation again. I don’t want to talk about it.”

Makka gives him the cold shoulder, turning away and padding back off into the trees.

“Real mature,” he snaps at her retreating back, then looks over the lake with a huff. Deep down he knows she’s just bored with sitting on the shore, and isn’t actually attempting to council him, but sometimes it really feels like she’s doing her best to get inside his head.

Reluctantly he follows her home. She’s right, he shouldn’t be sitting in the snow for hours at a time, moping and pinning pitifully like some abandoned baby bird. It’s not good for his health.

She’s waiting back by the door when Viktor catches up to her. He picks up the rag he has hanging in the archway to wipe her fur free of snow before letting her inside. When he secures the door shut behind them, everything goes dim. There are no holes in his den – of course there is not. He runs his hands along the interconnected logs that make up the inner walls in familiarity, the passage way narrow and sloping down towards the archway that serves as the actual entrance to the den.

What had begun as a simple ger made from driftwood and felt, jammed between two large birch trees for protection, has grown and solidified over the years. He moved from the forest to the lake shore after a year on the territory, realising he spent most of his time down by the large lake anyway, so why live at a distance? If he wasn’t skating across it then he was fishing and hunting waterfowl from it. Viktor liked the lake. He liked that when he emerged from his den in the mornings, the sight of it greeted him.

His den was deeply dug into the earth, only about a meter of wall and roof above the surface, the remaining three and a half meters all below ground. It kept it warm, and nothing was a stronger wall than the very earth herself. It had a strong timber frame which Yakov helped him build, and between the timber was wattle and daub. The inner walls were covered in felt and tanned leather, making it feel like he was still inside a simple ger, even if he had lay the stone floor and thatched the roof himself. There was something so soothing about the look of a ger. Maybe because he was raised inside one.

The outer walls were made of – well, mainly earth – but in the parts that were above ground Viktor had piled soil and vegetation to encouraged grasses and vines to grow up and over it all, which they did every spring after the snow cleared to his constant delight. It was always so sweet to know that he slept under a layer of grass and flowers. He felt like a beaver in its dam.

A hare in its burrow.

Makkachin is pacing around on the rugs looking cold and upset that the hearth in the centre of the den had yet to be used today. Viktor stacks up the wood needed and removes the wood hatch and thick felt cloth that he uses to cover the hole in the roof when the fire isn’t in use. The spark from his flint catches on the dry leaves immediate and grows without trouble from there. Makkachin grumbles and settles by the edge of the fire, watching over it like a mother observing the first steps of her child.

Warmth fills the den quickly, the many layers of insulation and its dugout nature trapping heat as well as any cave could. Better than a cave, in Viktor’s opinion, since his den had the hatch in the roof to let the smoke billow out of, leaving his eyes to not water and his lungs to _not_ fill with smoke.

The fire chases the chill from the tips of their toes and allows Viktor to shed his coat and mittens. Once the fire is stable, he fills a large clay pot with badly cut handfuls of venison, better cut cubes of potatoes, whole parsnips because he can’t be bothered cutting them, and some water he had melted from snow yesterday, then he hangs the pot over the fire to roast until nightfall.

Viktor wonders if Katsuki likes parsnips. He didn’t seem to have any in his supplies when Viktor was there. He knows that the omega likes venison, because he had cooked some and ate together just before he left.

Viktor wonders if things would have gone differently if he had managed to impress the pretty omega. He knows he didn’t – the younger man was being too pushy about the break in the weather, about ‘I wonder if Makkachin’s okay?’, ‘here let me help you pack you bag’, ‘I’ve got some venison over the fire to eat before you go, ah I mean, if you’re going to go’. Viktor had noticed, and decided not to mention it and make the situation worse. ‘Can you leave already?’ he had been saying between the words.

Viktor cringed at the spear head he was trying to polish. Memories of the omega always made him want to hurl himself into the ocean and never show his sorry face again.

Memories of the omega also made him want to go on a yearlong pilgrimage to hunt down the biggest Pihoqahiak bear-daemon in existence and return with the massive white pelt to present to the omega along with his declaration that he wishes to make a mate of him and…

“Oi, Viktor!” Someone cries from outside the den. More angry shouting follows soon after, less clear this time. Something along the lines of it being bloody cold outside and they can _see_ the smoke leaving his house so they _know_ it’s warm inside. Viktor could only place them as a child, likely small, very angry, constantly rude, needy for attention, blonde hair, green eyes, loved him deep down.

There was a loud bang as Viktor’s door went flying to the floor. He hadn’t bother to fix it properly yet. At the top of the sloped entrance corridor stood Yuri, one leg still in the air, looking a bit wide eyed and shocked that the door had the gall to actually give way to his abuse.

“What the fuck? What’s wrong with your door?!”

Viktor flopped down in the cushions, back of his hand going to his forehead as he gazed up at the roof and sighed.

“The winter took its toll on us all.”

Yuri bent to inspect the thick slabs of larch wood that made up the thing.

“There are scratch marks on it… were you keeping a hostage?” The delirious way Yuri said hostage telegraphed clearly that he didn’t think Viktor had what it took to keep a puppy hostage let alone an actual hostage.

“My heart’s been taken hostage,” Viktor informed the child.

When his only answer to the most important declaration of Viktor’s life was silence, he felt spurred enough to roll over and glare at where his door should be. The view that greeting him was one of emptiness.

“Yura! Don’t leave me! I need you!” Viktor clambered to his feet and went out into the snow to follow the kid. Yuri spun like a wild cat on him, snarling and hunching as if he was about to lunge.

“I’m so not putting up with whatever… whatever all this garbage is.” Fingers that might as well be claws flashed dangerously close as Yuri gestured harshly at him. Viktor felt hurt. His hand went over his chest, his expression one of pain.

“This garbage is my heart, Yura.” The little devil didn’t seem to care, just pulled the hood of his coat up and turned his nose in the air.

“Do I look like I fucking care about your heart? Keep it to yourself.” He then strode off the way he had came, following his own footprints through the snow.

“But he’s so perfect…” Viktor whined, so distraught and high pitched it got both Yuri and Makkachin’s attention.

“If their that dreamy than where are they?” Yuri screeched, now walking backwards so he could scream at Viktor and put space between them at the same time. “You scare them off with all your whining and old man smell?”

“No he… I…” Viktor paused and looked at Yuri, confusion crossing his face. “What are you doing here?”

It was like seeing a geyser explode.

“What the fuck!? Do you not remember?! You promised you were going to fucking mentor me for spring you piece of shit.”

“That’s not very nice, and I promised that? Me? Why would I do that…” Viktor calmly patted Makkachin as she stood in pure devotion next to him, while Yuri seemed to be trying to yank his own hair out from the roots.

“I can’t believe this. Uncle Yakov told me you had the memory span of a _bug_ but somehow you still manage to surpass yourself.” When Viktor continued to just look on confused, Yuri cracked. “Hello? Two years ago? When I came to live with Aunt Lilia? You promised me that the spring after I present you’ll mentor me? Hello? Hello you fucking moron? Is this rigging a bell?”

“It sounds vaguely familiar now that you mention it, but I don’t know…” Viktor walked over to Yuri and discreetly sniffed the air, picking out Yuri’s scent. Yakov told him Yuri presented early on in autumn, but Viktor needed to smell it for himself to believe it. “You’re an omega, Yura. I don’t think I’m the best choice to mentor you anymore.” _I don’t think I ever was, what was I thinking two years ago?_ “What about that omega friend of Yakov’s? Boglasha or something? The one that makes the ice skates?”

“Oh, you remember the name of Uncle Yakov’s _one_ random friend that you’ve met _once,_ but you don’t remember your promise? _Bogdasha_ is even worse than Yakov or Lilia - he’s old and wrinkly and smells like sour cream – you want me to learn about what to do with all this extra shit from a wrinkly bag of sour cream?! Would you really do that to me Viktor? I thought you were better than that.” Bogdasha was rather old, and he had smelt sort of musty and milky if he is remembering correctly, but the man was a sweet omega with a horde of children with his beta wife. He would know what to teach, and more importantly _how_ to teach Yuri.

“He makes beautiful skates - have some respect.” He had charged Viktor very reasonably for his ice skates and that’s something he doesn’t forget. See, he does have a good memory for somethings. “But, what can I teach you, Yuri? Let’s be real here, I’m an alpha, and you’re… not.”

He immediately regretted those words by the look of pure loathing on Yuri’s face. Even Makkachin noticed the drop-in temperature, quickly ditching Viktor and running back into the den like the loyal protector she was. He wasn’t even mad.

“So I’m just some weak little omega now, all of a sudden? I’m not up to your level anymore? Don’t need to learn how to fight, don’t need to learn how to protect myself, because I’m always going to be some weak omega? Is that what’s going on?”

“No. That’s not what I mea-”

“Maybe I want to, oh I don’t know, stop me if this sounds too irrational for you, but be able to survive on my own? Maybe I want to have my own territory, go exploring when I leave Aunt Lilia’s farm, fucking follow some stars and cross the plains or some bullshit. You’ve followed the stars, you can teach me how to do that. What’s that got to do with being alpha or omega? Heats are just the same as ruts, you’ve slept with omegas, you know how it works, how to handle pregnancy and all that.” Viktor pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed as he tried to filter through everything that had just been thrown at him

“Honestly dealing with pregnancies has never been a skill of mine, since I sort of prefer guys. I thought you knew this?” Strangely Yuri calmed down at that, looking a little shy all of a sudden. _Oh? How interesting._

“Well… well maybe I like guys too, and that’s why Bogdasha is a shit choice, because all he knows is some shit about, like, vaginas or whatever that shit is. I can’t let that happen to me! I’ll come out dumber then I was going in! I’ll carry the scars for life! Living with Mila for a year was bad enough, I’ve heard way more than my fair share about how her shit bleeds or her boobs hurt or whatever. I can’t go back to that!” Those green eyes honestly looked like those of someone who had seen war. Viktor didn’t have any siblings, he had cousins, but none of them acted like Mila had when Yuri first arrived on his aunt and uncle’s farm. The devious alpha had pretty much made it her life’s mission to become the big sister you always thanked god you never had.

Viktor clasped his hands together and tried not to tear up at the fact he had a little budding same-lover before him. He remembers when he was just a budding same-lover, a tiny little flower in the soil yet to unfurl, oh sweeter times, sweeter times.

“My dear Yura, is this us bonding over a shared love of guys? Because I really feel like we’re bonding right now.”

Once again, Yuri did that great impersonation of a feral cat. Viktor scowled as he wondered how he was going to make a flower out of what he saw before him.

“Fuck you, we’re not bonding!” The hair had potential, Yuri seemed to be growing it out. Maybe trying to emulate Viktor and his own long hair? That was flattering, he could mentor him in hair braiding once it got long enough. Fantastic plan, Nikiforov. “Now you understand what a shit situation I’m in and feel sorry for me – which you shouldn’t, because I can fuck you up - you get where I’m coming from when I say you’re the best option for me here? Okay? You get it? It’s all just guys, it’s all the same sex, with guys, we’ve all got the same stuff. Guy stuff. It doesn’t matter if you’re an alpha or I’m an omega, is all the same.”

“It’s… all the… same…” Viktor felt the crushing weight of Yuri’s innocence in that moment, brain briefly collapsing as he tried to understand what the young omega was talking about. Guy stuff. “I’ve got a lot of work to do.” He muttered in horror. “Even then, I can’t explain everything. I don’t know what heats feel like and what to do for them, I don’t know what an omega should do with an alpha in rut, I’m the alpha, I’m always the one in rut, I…” Viktor froze mid-speech, an idea striking him hard. “I might know the perfect person, actually.” Viktor launched himself at the boy and slung an arm around his shoulders, earning him a hiss.

“Lesson number one! When an alpha is courting, it all comes down to proving yourself in the three P’s. Care to guess what the three P’s are?” Viktor was bodily dragging his cute student back into the den, eyes gleaming as he planned.

“I don’t care. Penis, personality, ergh…” _alright let’s just cut him off there._

“Providing, protecting, and parenting. Anyone will want you if you can prove yourself good enough at these three things, life hack.” Viktor laughed giddily as extravagant plans of impressing Katsuki started to solidify in his mind.

“Are there a handy three for omega’s?” Yuri grouched while collapsing into the furs of Viktor’s bed. There were perfectly good cushions by the fire pit, why did he have to go sulking off into the corner like that?

“No. The three P’s are my own creation. Maybe in a few years you can tell me about the three R’s or whatever there is for omega’s.” Yuri looked mildly horrified. Viktor didn’t know why.

“Three R’s yeah? Rear, rump… ravishing.”

“Keep working on it.”

Yuri groaned and kicked his feet up on a wooden chest.

“What do you look for, then, oh great ancient one? What can’t you resist in an omega?” Viktor didn’t even need to think about that one, he rattles off what first come to mind when envisioning the perfect omega.

“Gorgeous brown eyes, a soft squishy body, makes the most amazing food I’ve ever eaten in my life, has a scent to die for, like the nectar of heav-" Viktor got jarred from his dreams by a loud scoff.

“Alright, so two eyes, curves, not burn shit and have scent glands. Woah, you alphas’ set the bar real high. I’m honestly not shocked.”

“Yes, I can tell. But it doesn’t matter what you think Yura, because what’s going to happen now is you’re helping me earn major points in the parenting factor. I’m going to show off how good I am, mentoring this cute little kid, and you’re going to tell him how much you look up to me because I will literally owe you for life if you do.” He crouched by Yuri, a threatening layer of scent hanging heavy over them. “Remember our three P’s? What are they?”

“Parenting, penis and penis.”

“One out of three, such a fast learner!” Viktor gushed and pinched Yuri’s cheeks, well aware he could lose his hands here but deciding it was worth it anyway.

They grow up so fast.


	4. Beginnings Of Spring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hohoho my lovelies! Yes, IT IS I, the mad author behind this all, back from the abyss. Basically there was university assessments I didn't even try battling against, then during my last month in Singapore there was a lot of rushed touristy stuff and farewell party attending, and then travelling back home and getting busy with family Christmas excitement. I actually won't be off the road and into my own house until the 25th of January so (internal holy moly). 
> 
> I'm actually sort of happy that life forced me to put this chapter on the back burner, because it has now simmering into something far more beautiful than it originally was. Let me tell you, plotting out how this went down was FKN.HARD. 25k PLUS was written all up and only about 8k has made it in. But, I am just so happy to have something to gift you on this christmas night. The bottom third is rough as guts, and I'll be coming back in the following days to polish it up, but I thought you guys might appreciate it. If you are not a lover of the fine art that is the written-by-a-third-grader-with-a-clenched-fist style, then just lay off reading the new chappie for about a week and come back. Let me know of any spelling and grammar mistakes you see - because I am frankly SHOCKING at these sorts of things. If anyone's willing to sacrifice themselves to the life of beta then let me know.
> 
> Next chappie should be a fair bit faster.

 -

春の始まり (beginnings of spring)

-

Spring smells like rot and mud when it begins. No flowers yet, no creatures, just icy slush bleeding the colour of earth, melting into the granite and schist.

The thawing of the world is a process that gets ugly before it gets pretty, like a child growing through puberty, leaving the purity of winter behind for the wet dew of spring. New amber sunlight sliding across the skin, arush with something pleasurable and unknown to a creature of dormant winter nights.

The land is yet to be caught in spring’s messy lushness. Yuuri pauses on his way down the mountainside to peer outwards. What stretches before him is a land of smeared greys and browns.

The periwinkle of the cloudless sky is the only colour for his eyes to rest upon after three moons of dimness. The blue is bold and clear. Yuuri can feel it healing his weakened eyes, like putting sooty hands into a rushing stream. He stares and stares, eyelashes fluttering against the sunlight, adjusting to the colour of blue as if he had never seen it before.

Soon the seeds buried under the autumn litter will germinate. They’ll bud and stretch upwards in the blink of an eye, covering the earth with enough sweetness to mask an omega’s nest. Enough colour that he’ll never be able to rip his eyes away. Tall clumps of yellow loosestrife, furrows of iris in apricots and violets, medunica scattering across the slopes as it struggles to pick between being blue or white, skyfulls of tree blossoms in all their splendid subtle colours, enough water-bulbs to choke a river with, delicate blue squill constantly crunching underfoot, meadows abloom with the thick crocuses, and so much lupine he could get lost within it.

The sweetness will be too much in the beginning. His nose will water and burn.

Then will come the animals to trample paths through it all, to roll in the pollen, eat the soft petals, crunch on the fleshy stalks, have sex within the foliage. The spice of dirty winter plumage being moulted, and fresh manure being absorbed greedily by the plants, will rise. It’ll temper the scent of the world into something better.

Peppery spice; as the flowers send their roots deep and their leaves start to fray at the edges. Syrupy spice; of milk flowing from the mothers who managed to keep the child through winter. Brackish spice; from the blood and water of births and hunts. Pungent spice; from territory markers being redone. Bitter spice; from dramatic operas of dominance  playing out in the forest.

Earthy spice; when the victory claims their prize there on the forest floor, pressing into the bark and soil, crushing flowers under the throes of meeting bodies – be those bodies as small as mice in the hay or as large as the moose in the reeds.

Yuuri of the Katsuki is leaving his winter nest. He stands at the foot of his mountain and draws a deep breath: melted ice and damp earth is all he gets. No sweetness. No spice. Spring is not here yet, but it is close. A handful of days… or maybe a feetful as well.

This is normal for him, to be out before all the other creatures, braving the last few days of brutal cold. This is a land before tigers wonder in from the south, before bears wake up and alpha’s rise, stomachs empty and ready to prowl. It is the one slither of time even the weakest of omegas can roam without fear.

Some people say they are like summer nights, some liken themselves to times in autumn or spring. There is a saying that people’s scents mimic their favourite stage of nature. Petals, damp leaves, rain drops, nectar, salt water, melt water, old wood, ripped grass, fresh snow.

If Yuuri had to pick a week of the year that represented him, it would be this one. The rot and mud time with its smeared browns and greys. The ugliness and silence of the land calms him. An old friend – or perhaps a reflection? An unassuming druid curled up under cracking ice. Isolation waiting.

In all the years previous, when he’s stepped off the mountain and wrapped himself in the smells of rot and mud, it’s been with a heart beating like a festival of drums, all a hundred of them out of time with one another. There has always been pure fear in his blood. Terrified of discovery on the alpha’s territory. Terrified the alpha will rise sooner than expected and find him there.

He crept like a fox through the night with a stolen lamb bleating weakly in his jaws, or a mouse scuttling across a clearing, the Nikiforov’s the owl who could have swooped down without a sound and impaled him on their talons.

He creeps differently now. This year. There was no reason to carefully pick his way along beams of fallen trees and exposed rock to hide his footprints. Pointless to tightly control his scent and brush against nothing, hiding every and all evidence he had ever passed through. The alpha wasn’t going to discover that someone had been on their territory during winter because the alpha _already knew_ that. There was no discovery to be made, only something left to catch.

No more hiding, only running. No more fox or mouse. Now he was a racing hare with the hot breath of a wolf fanning against his precious cotton tail. What use was there in hiding your tracks when the hunter was right behind you?

Yuuri was running in a straight line for the territory border. He didn’t care about leaving tracks in the softening snow anymore, or how building a sweat and heavy panting made his scent stick out like a black eye in the empty air, or the thin pine branches that scratched at him.

He’s a good runner. Usually. Not that fast but he can run from dawn to midday before burning out. He’s got this nice gate, all smooth and ground eating. It’s almost meditation to him, the way his chest will find a deep pattern and his muscles will fade from sensation. Dissociating, a travelling companion said once. Astral projection, said a stranger one.

His body hasn’t found the familiar rhythm yet, so he’s tiring a bit quicker, but soon he’ll pick it back up. The snows are still a bit deep, he is losing energy there, and though he refuses to acknowledge it, his pack is far heavier than usual. It took him three days to choose what came with him and what stayed in the cave.

It usually takes him a bare ten moments. Most of that time taken up with shoving it all inside his pack, not _deciding between two different blankets for the love of –_

Yuuri snaps under his breath, chastising the stirring omega side of his mind. Why couldn’t it have remained in slumber until he got off the territory? Why did it have to wake up with a vengeance so much earlier than usual? It itches in the back of his mind now, becoming more awake with every passing day, growing more distressed as it realises that it is get again being stolen from its alpha's territory.

He really doesn’t want to acknowledge it though.

The sharp bank of a dry river finds him in the woods – or he finds it, running onto it and discovering his fool-proof ‘straight line’ idea might have a few obstacles. His hands go to the old timber bunched at the flood line, steadying himself down the gully while he gingerly toes around iced over river stones.

He makes it to the bottom without a problem, and fugitively looks around as if searching for what he had been worried about in the first place. Adjusting the bow across his back, he takes to the path the river has carved for him, slowly bending in the direction Yuuri wants to go. Placidly he follows the gully, appreciating the way hungry pines couldn't scratch at his pale skin anymore.

The running comes easier to him now that the slope of the foothills has been replaced by the flat of the river bed. He is not delusional about the distance that faces him. The alpha’s territory is a large one. Mostly because there is so little competition, but also because Vi- _the alpha_ is strong enough to hold it without challenge.

It’s sort of a trap of his own design. The closer to the heart of the territory he nested, the safer he had felt, the more accepting the alpha’s faint presence smelt, the more placid his omega was, the easier it was to go into his low energy state and just sleep, to fool his anxious instincts into truly believing the alpha was there, protecting them.

In the last days of autumn he had taken the time to stop at every new rise to listen for animal calls and smell for the intoxicating scent of the alpha. His body was at its peak than, able to scurry along the mountainsides and shoulder his pack with ease. Toughened by the almighty hurry back Yuuri constantly subjects himself to. Still strong off summer fatness and late harvests.

It usually takes him a whole cycle of winter daylight to travel from the border of the alpha’s territory to the edge of the inner sanctum.

Yuuri braces himself that this ‘straight line’ idea could either make the journey shorter or longer. It was a gamble, as all unfamiliar routes are. Maybe he would make it off the territory before nightfall, or maybe he would not.

His body in rot and mud is nothing like it was in autumn. A season of selectively starving and deep sleep has that effect. Learner, sharper, but weaker. All the fat stores used up. His muscles are fine, but instead of being padded in flesh, they cover his bones on their own. They feel lighter too, like they’re full of air instead of the dark strings he knows muscles are spun from. Yuuri doesn’t like looking so frail and smooth, not even with all these layers of fabrics and furs to hide his body inside.

The banks of the river grew while he wasn’t looking. They’re sheer now and tower over him, covered in powdery snow that hides all. A vision arises in his harried mind of him tumbling back, skull against stone or elbow joint smashed under the weight of his body. He can see it, a pile of rotten timbers covered thickly in snow from winter. The old wood, that was once frozen solid and safe to walk over, now defrosting and suddenly so very very soft. His foot will come down, thinking what lies under the snow is ground, but instead it falls through into the hollow gaps. He will collapse, and the shock of his weight will snap all the dead timber and down they’ll all go. Down and down. Skull against stone, elbow under his body.

Unless under immediate threat of real danger, Yuuri wasn’t going to be climbing back up the bank anytime soon. Not when it was this high, at least.

Yuuri doesn’t trust rivers. All his injuries have happened by rivers. Small seasonal ones like this that wind through forests, their glimmer of innocence covering their cunning. Yuuri likes big water, bays and courses deep enough for him to swim through without the lumber grabbing at his ankles.

Yuuri decides to keep running the river bed. It’s still going in the right direction, so it’s no inconvenience to him right now. The sun is still at his right shoulder, hanging red and uncommitted in the sky. He doesn’t really know where he is, a downside of diverting from the old and true path, but as long as he keeps orientated with the sun as it crawls, barely above the tree tops, from the east to the west, everything will work out.

Everything dose not work out.

The river starts to wind in big looping arches, taking him left and right and left before he makes any noticeably progress north. The extra work takes time and effort, and he retires to a walk. From the corner of his eye he starts to catch the sun sinking downwards instead of floating across.

He braces himself that it might take more than one day to get off the alpha’s territory.

It’s time to declare today a mistake and find a dark place to cry.

Whose bright idea was it to get down into this death pit anyway? Sure it _looked_ like it was a smooth road north but hadn’t he learned anything? This territory was as deceiving as its alpha. He had let his ankles, sore from running on an angle, control his decision making. He makes stupid decisions when he's tired.

There was no way he was staying down in the river’s path for the night. Cold air sinks, and the temperature at the bottom of this deep gully would be close to deadly by midnight.

If he climbs the bank slowly, on all fours, testing each foothold and handhold before his weight comes down, then it should be fine.

And so he does. Yuuri walks along a bit more in a convoluted search for a section that slopes gently. The best he manages to find is a section rough with large stones that could act as much needed footholds. It was the best he was going to get, and he couldn’t afford to keep looking. The day was getting darker with every passing breath.

The bank is four times higher than him. Yuuri stands at the bottom of it and cranes his head to look up, planning his path as well as he can. He claps his gloved hands together to shake them of frost and takes his heavy pack off his shoulders.

The pack was more useful off his shoulder’s than on. Climbing with packs on always made him fear falling backwards, whether rational or not. Besides, when nudging it along before him it could act as a testing weight for any false snow floors.

He checks his first footholds; they are good. The soft snow quickly crumples down to reveal solid rock. Tentatively, he pushed the pack a few feet up, on the lip of a jutting stone.

Progress is slow, but safe.

As he and the pack make progress, old snow bunches around the fabric of the bag, under it and, just slightly, over it. This makes him pause. It’s just an old pack. Nothing of importance. It’s a modest over-sized pocket made from felt and seamed together with hemp twine. There is a rudimentary button in the form of a stick of wood, which feeds through a hole made simply from putting the tip of a knife through the felt hide. He needs a new one, really. This one is worn and torn, his own handiwork visible where he’s taken a needle to it. It’s old.

But it is his most beloved possession. It has hung from his shoulders since the very day he turned his back on home. His mother made this. Down in the corner, in delicate needlework, the image of a green pheasant sits. When he first left the island, he used to clutch it in his sleep. Eventually that stopped, settling into the more dignified behaviour of using it as a pillow.

He used to run his fingers over the embroidered pheasant, as if trying to touch something that wasn’t there anymore. A family.

Yuuri shakes his head and returns to pushing the pack up the bank foot by foot. It’s seen worse than a bit of muddy snow. Oceans, mountains, villages, grasslands. Caves and huts and gers and lean-to’s and nothing at all. Rafts and carts and horseback. Balmy summers and driving sleet and everything in between.

He stretches up, brushes the snow off the bag, and continues.

It would be bad if the… stuff inside it… becomes wet from snow getting in. There were a few items inside he wants to keep in pristine condition – to be worth more when bartering, of course – it’s not like he cares about _his_ stuff, but it, just, they were objectively valuable.

Normally Yuuri’s pack contains a short list of essentials. Bow, hunting tools, repair kit, pot, water skin, spare outfit, blanket.

That is all he needs.

Of course, he had swapped out the blanket for the hide of the elk Vikt- _the alpha_ had skinned. The alpha had left it behind accidently, the underside yet to be tanned. For days Yuuri didn’t dare touch it, afraid the alpha would jump out from the darkness shouting _‘ah ha!’_ followed by ‘ _get your hands off my elk you presumptuous trespasser!’_

Eventually he reasoned the alpha would be more upset to see it spoil than for Yuuri to tan it for him. He could return it to Viktor as a sign of appreciation for his unwitting generosity all these years or… or something.

Yuuri doesn’t think he had ever tanned a more perfect hide. He lavished attention over the hide for days, no detail or effort spared.

In which comes the dilemma, again, that his omega side was not ready to face reality. He knew the moment he finished the coat and lifted it up, that it would be a centrepiece of his nests from now until always. As long as he had it, there would be no letting go. His instincts were hyper-focuses on it after the care and emotion that went into the tanning.

What was four foxes sawn together compared to the warmth of an elk stag’s winter coat? It took up more space in the pack, and Viktor will be angry he stole it, but it was worth it. Essential. He packed it – of course he did. He was never going to see Viktor again, so what did it matter?

Ha. What did it matter?

And of course, all those small things Viktor had handed him. Given to repay the debt Viktor assumed he owed. For Yuuri saving him from dying in the snow at the entrance, for tending to him through the rut and after-rut.

Yuuri knows alpha’s are loath to be weak before other; in debt to others. It cuts into their instincts to be the strongest. What sort of strong alpha needs help? Of course Viktor had reacted to the uncomfortable circumstance – being protected and provided for by a strange omega, of all things – by throwing everything he could spare at Yuuri, like he was trying to prove to the ancestors that: _see, I am successful, I am strong. Look at me, giving all these things away to this weak omega. I am the provider. See?_

There was the amazing mittens.

The two crocheted trousers that could be worn in the cold and in the heat, something furs couldn’t match.

The yarn belt with the pocket. He had never owned something with a _pocket_ before. A sturdy belt was beyond useful in its own ways too. He could knot it tight around his middle and tuck the shafts of his arrows between it and his skin. He could loop an axe head through it, put a knife in the pocket or fill it with arrow heads. Yes, the belt made from long strips of homespun cloth was beautiful. He didn’t want to ruin it, not ever. Not after Viktor’s own two hands had palmed it off to him. Even the alpha’s table scraps were fit for chieftains.

It’s not like Yuuri needed to keep these gifts with him. He could have left them behind. He could have. It’s not like he’s imprinted on them or anything. No, not at all. Because this wasn’t courting behaviour – an alpha like that would never want someone like Yuuri, especially after he insulted him so. This was him weakly seeing courting behaviours in what was only dominance behaviours.

Yuuri knows courting behaviours, alright? He was an integral part of Mari’s courting, as her only brother. The family advertises the community that the member is ready for courting by hanging a string of jewels and shells around the crown of their head and smearing their cheeks with red ochre. Those interesting in courting the family member then gave a blanket – the quality of the blanket often indicating just how investing in courting they were – to the matriarch of the member’s pack in absolute secrecy. The suitor blankets were coated in their own scent, not their normal scent, or their dynamic scent, but the smell of them during sex.

It was not a dirty scent in the land’s he grew up in. It was considered the most true, the most venerable of all the scents, the most revered. The fullnagiem scent.

Yuuri knew all this, okay. He wasn’t an idiot. With their mother dead he was the matriarch for Mari, collecting all the suitor-blankets so she could assess them with anonymity. He remembers taking the blankets off people he had known all his life, yet couldn’t for the life of him, not even with the proof right before his eyes, match the scent to the owner. There was something so very different about the fullnagiem scent.

Viktor had not given him anything close to a blanket with his fullnagiem scent. He instead gave him small objects that hardly had his normal scent on him. It was like the things he gave were old possessions he hadn’t used in a long time. Things he was fine discarding in a display of dominance.

Just as Yuuri was fine to take them and hold them and just imagining, for a moment, that they had been to impress him into considering him, and not obeying him.

Maybe he really was an idiot. A fool. But if he just repeated it enough times perhaps the self-loathing would drift away. _Viktor’s gifts were quality survival items that he would be crazy to leave behind._ What purpose did they serve him in the cave, left behind with the furs of the winter nest and empty food bags, folded and put away to wait for next winter?

Not that there was going to be a next winter.

The red sash with the pretty white embroidery? That was essential, okay. For summer. When things got hot and muggy and the furs had to be taken off. The sable cloak was just as important. It was a good secondary coat to pack – lighter and not as heavy duty as the one he had on now. Good for use in springs and autumns. Essential. How could he survive without it?

Of course, the flint spear heads and the knives were packed in. Yuuri loved flint. He never leaves flint behind. He replaced his old comb – rudimentary, useless, certain teeth snapped off, costed him far more than anything he’s ever bought before – with the one Viktor had thrown away: beautiful, slides through his hair like oil, yet to so much as chip – an impressive feat considering Yuuri has been combing his hair with it almost every morning and night.

There was the necklace, so light it didn’t make sense to leave it. It was around his neck right now, the weight of the rock against his sternum a comfort as he carefully picks his way up the bank.

Undoubtedly these were things Viktor saw as useless to him, things he already had better replacements for back in his den. Things his mate had gotten bored off or his children grown out of.

Right now, he’s wearing two of the gifts. A part of him justified that it was smart, to smell like Viktor as he was trying to sneak through his territory. Another part knew he just liked to breath in the fading scent of the man. On his head was the white fur cap, protecting his face and ears – which had gone soft and delicate from the ever-steam of the cave – from the artic winds. He’ll sell it for some flint when the colds have gone.

The outfit he wore was the reindeer skin one. He has owned nothing warmer, not in his whole entire life. It made mud-and-rot feel like nothing than a brisk evening. This one smelt like Viktor on the outside, but inside it, deep in the fibres, he could smell someone else. It was too old for him to tell anything more than _female_ and _healthy_. Benignly, his omega liked this. There was something thrilling for his instincts in the knowledge that he was wearing the clothes of someone precious to Viktor, in the knowledge that Viktor could keep his mate so healthy and give her things _even better_ than this reindeer skin.

He understood that it came with its own message. Giving winter clothes to someone you were ordering out into winter was a very clear show of your expectations for the order to be obeyed.

Then there was it. The other gift with a clear message.

Yuuri thinks of that dagger being passed to him, flames from the fire bouncing off its pinkish surface, lacing the runes that run across it in gold. He thinks of the way shadow and firelight had played across Viktor’s face as he studied him, eyes no longer reminding Yuuri of the sky but instead the colour of ice before it gives out under your feet. He remembers the ways those lips had shaped as they spoke, calculated and cold. _I protect my people, it’s my job_ he had said, and Yuuri heard what he meant. _I’ll let you live for now, because I appreciate that you didn’t leave me to freeze to death, but come spring I want you gone. Or else… you see this dagger? I know what to do with your kind._

Or else.

As much as he fears the dagger, he desires it. Yuuri has never owned a piece of copper before, never so much as touched copper if one didn’t count the time someone tried to slice him open with a copper spear head.

He had wanted to know what the red metal felt like so bad. A half-moon ago the curiosity had become too much, and he worked up the nerve to brush the metal every so quickly with one fingertip.

The rest of the day was spent in regret, dropping into a feverish sickness that lasted all night. It was worth it. Copper, a godly metal. He once saw someone slice bone with it. He could trade it for more flint then he could carry. He could name his price. He could probably convince an omega to spend their heat with him if he promised them the copper weapon in payment. Yuuri always wondered what it was like to be on the receiving end of an in-heat omega. He thinks it might help him understand himself better.

So Yuuri has the dagger still. Of course he does. Wrapped up in the sable cloak and pushed into the depths of his pack.

He was travelling pretty much exactly like normal. Kind of. Bow, repair kit, hunting tools, dagger, pot, comb, water skin, blanket, a spare outfit in the form of the red sash, belt, trousers, sable cloak, mittens and fur cap.

Denial was a particular strength of his.

About half way up the gully Yuuri hears something. The shuffling of an animal. It’s breathing is heavy and reaches him before the crunching of snow does. Yuuri flattens himself against the slope, sealing his lips tight to silence any sound.

It’s coming from above him, so if he just stays here, hiding in the dip of the earth, then he’ll have a chance.

Against an animal that relies on sight, that is.

From the way this one was snuffling and snorting, he was out of luck. It’s been on the prowl for a while now, going by the panting, which means there is a very high chance it’s hungry. With a sinking gut Yuuri remembers that the hours of running have thickened his scent. He is _really_ out of luck.

His hands snap silently to his pack, searching as calmly as he can for his stone knife. Over winter he had honed every item he owned to a razor edge, and the grey knife his hand grasps around was ready to slice along vein lines in perfect accuracy.

Drawing it in front of himself protectively, Yuuri forcefully breathes slow and deep. He can’t afford to carry fear – he needs complete cold confidence in his weapon, in his ability to escape this in one piece – even though that might not be the truth of it, failing to fake away the fear would only lower his chances.

The deep breathes quickly take effect. It’s a well-worn ritual for him now. Adrenaline simmers under his skin in eerie familiarity.

He’s going to try and kill this thing, if it comes towards him. Its vocals aren’t baritone enough for a bear, but it’s not small either. A lynx, leopard, boar, or a wolverine, or a wolf. If he kills it, then there will be something to eat tonight.

_You’re doing great Yuuri; keep focusing on the bright side!_

It is coming closer, right to the edge of the bank. Yuuri sinks lower, preparing to lunge upwards if it so much as takes a step down the bank towards him. He prepares himself for a vision of a large dark face looming over him, deep set eyes snapping to him, a gaping, panting mouth taking in the scent of a relaxed omega and being fooled for just a second too long.

What comes over the edge does so in a way closer to peer than loom. It is just as enormously furry as any other creatures that roams the winters here, but instead of being wild or shaggy it is curly. Light brown instead of darks or whites.

It cocks its head at him, flopped over ears swinging back to equilibrium while it regards him.

For some reason, the hound feels familiar. Yuuri just can’t place it. Maybe he’s seen a breed of likeness at a festival or harvest market. It unfreezes from regarding him to crane its neck back and howl.

Yuuri winces at the sound. That’s not good.

“Hey, quiet down -” it stops to take a breath, then howls louder. The hound’s tail wags wildly as it bounces between yowling and drawing in air.

As cold blooded as Yuuri tries to appear, he would never be able to bring himself to kill a hunting hound that wasn’t attacking him. Especially not one with such curls, it reminds him too much of the litters his mother raised back home. Besides this companion looked so well loved, with a sleek coat, clear eyes and frankly an outstanding body condition considering how long and vicious this winter had been.

The dog is barking too loud for Yuuri to pick up the footsteps of the person. He smells them instead. Their scent drifts on the same wind that pulls at the white hare fur enveloping Yuuri’s head and cheeks. The same wind that carries away the large clouds that puff from the hound’s jaws.

It’s their presentation smell that makes they stand out so much from the forest. New omegas are so sweet, almost toxic in their sweetness. An overwhelming sappiness that hides their individual scent for months until their hormones calm.

Yuuri has exactly two seconds to panic, stashing the stone knife under his right knee, before there is a second creature standing above him peering down. This one is a barley-a-year-old-omega human. Nothing much else is discernible. They’re so tightly bundled in winter furs, the only parts visible are their frowning eyes and the blushed bridge of their nose.

In their hand they carry a long spear crafted in a fashion nearly identical to Viktor’s.

He remembers where he’s seen that hound before.

_Ah, of course,_ his brain says.

_Rival,_ his omega says.

Mates tended to stay together for four years. Long enough to raise a child to an age where they didn’t need constant care. As the bond mark fades the partners of territory-bound alphas like Viktor simply wonder off in search of something else. Omega partners, beta partners, or even roaming alpha partners, all understood the natural life cycle of a relationship to be the length of the bond mark. Otherwise, why else would bond mark’s fade? What sense was there to staying on one territory, having children to one alpha, all your life?

The red-haired mate must have left him since last winter. Yuuri hadn’t noticed it, but then, he was only a winter visitor of this realm. There was never much to see in winter.

Children usually stayed with the territory-bound alpha. It seemed Viktor might have a small red-haired son or daughter tucked up at home along with that older one. What age must the blonde one be now? Eight, nine?

Obliviously Viktor would get snapped up within a year of his den emptying. Of course the creature that gets the pleasure – the honour – of curling up in the furs of Viktor’s lakeside den would be some youthful, beautiful, otherworldly stunning first-time omega. God, as if Yuuri ever stood a chance.

He was making a few flying leaps of logic here, of course, but he just knew. Deep in his bones.

It made sense. Viktor didn’t have a bite mark because they were still in the courting stages. The instincts of an alpha heightened during courting, explaining why Viktor managed to sniff Yuuri out of his dark hole this winter unlike all the others. If Viktor was courting then of course his head was too full of ideas of this other omega to even look in Yuuri’s direction, to even indicate, to even notice how stupidly interested Yuuri smelt in that cave.

“Oh,” said the rugged up omega, “is it you?”

Yuuri wasn’t sure what to make of that. This omega spoke casually, yet the spear was being held in hands that shook slightly; he could see the tip of the spear head wavering as it pointed down at him.

The hound had stopped barking once the human spoke. Now it whines and paces around the younger omega, like it is being leashed.

Wherever hounds went, their masters were close behind. His mother told him something like that once.

Yuuri clutches at the slopped rocks under his gloved hands, at his bag slowly slipping down the snow. He was _not_ going to be caught here when Viktor arrives. Not going to be discovered stuck like an oyster on the wall of this bloody chasm, cowered under the likes of some fluffy hound and a youngling omega.

Omegas had pride too. Especially omegas like Yuuri. Yuuri prided himself on being unnoticable, on crossing lands without even raising the suspicion of so much as a cricket.

This wasn’t exactly going to plan.

The quivering spear tip told him a lot, more than the scowling eyes or the rosy red nose. Yuuri drags his bag closer so he can retrieve his knife from under his pressed knee. Careful to conceal the hand that holds it, Yuuri continues up the bank, eyes locked onto the sliver of face visible through all that dark fur. The sky was rapidly getting dark behind them. Yuuri needed to move.

“Is it who?” He grumbles, hoping this isn’t like the last time he misunderstood a local figure of speech. Nearly costed him a toe.

“Oi, no. Stay still.” Yuuri is close enough to the top that when the omega realigns the spear up with his face, it’s close enough. His left hand stabs the knife into the ground behind his bag, giving the heavy pack something to sit on as he lets go of it.

His right hand strikes up from underneath the weapon, wrapping around the base of the spear tip and yanking the whole thing into the snow underneath Yuuri’s lifted body.

The tips of the omega’s shoes were lined up on the edge of the bank. They had clutched the spear tight but forgotten to do anything more, so when Yuuri yanks, they come following it down like a feather. Yuuri has all sharp objects driven deep into the snow within the space of three seconds, so he doesn’t fear getting some stray wound as the younglings body comes tipping down on top of him.

Yuuri throws his arms wide and catches them – awkwardly and around the midsection – he’s still crouching, with his legs braced wide but slipping under the struggling of the creature.

“Mmumhh, let the fuck go!” They kick wildly, nearly sending them both rolling back down the bank Yuuri had just painstakingly crab crawled all the way up. A spark of indignation gives him the power he needs to lift the body higher, swing them, and slam them down on the rocky ground. They gasp on impact, winded and stunned from their skull cracking back on a rock.

Grasping the fur around their neck, Yuuri leans all this weight against his forearms and presses them over the younger omega’s chest. Their hands go to his wrists, but they can’t do much besides hold him.

They’ve dropping into quietness now. With their screams and protests gone, the renewed barking of the dog is painstakingly obvious.

The omega twists and struggles under Yuuri. The youngling is mildly successful in pissing Yuuri off. Next to their head is the pack, with the stone knife still stabbed into the ground. Yuuri waits for them to tire themselves out against his weight before he yanks the knife out with one hand and draws it back to their face.

“Look, I don’t care how this ends- ” lie, he would never hurt Viktor like this. “I just want to get off this territory without any trouble being made for me- ” lie, Yuuri would give his own firstborn to stay here. That’s pretty much been his mission statement since witnessing Viktor glide across ice. Too bad he didn’t have a firstborn to give. Why hadn’t he settled down with a nice alpha female like his father wanted?

“Who are you? Are you Viktor’s friend? The one in the mountain? Chill out alright. I’m Vikto- ”

“Bloody hell,” Yuuri growls under his breath. With a shove of his arms he pushed the youngling down the slope – lightly, of course – then quickly gatheres his pack, knife, and new spear up. It’s an easy three arm lengths to the top, and once there the hound only barks at him from a safe distance.

It was too tame. That’s what happened when masters favoured them too much, they lost all sense of wilderness. Yuuri flicks the spear around in his left hand and points at the hound’s barking face with it.

“Quiet now, shush, no. Good dog.” It looks curiously at him, then growls a bit. Growls carry far less than barks. “That’s more like i-wwumh!” he goes face first into the ground, something cold goes up his nose. The youngling omega seems to be sitting proudly on Yuuri’s back, the heel of their boot smacking down on his head and grinding.

“Hey you stay right put, alright? The old man’s not going to like it if he finds out I let you go running off.”

Yuuri manages to rotate his head just enough to side-eye the person perched across his shoulders. Their scarf has unravelled and now reveals a wide smile. It’s toothy and sharp. A little bit of an unhinged vibe, if he was being honest.

The he spots it. The muddy, dirty, brown underside of the omega’s boot. It’s still grinding into the side of Yuuri’s head, keeping his face down. Grinding into the soft white fur of his new cap.

“Argh, you animal!” Yuuri kicks and rolls the youngling clean off him, to their surprise, if the round shape their blue lips make as they go sprawling is any indication. “Why would you do that!” springing to his feet and ripping the cap from his head, Yuuri was on the cusp of declaring the youngling dead meat when he looks up.

_Oh god no._

The youngling’s hood had been thrown from their head, revealing long threads of golden hair. With their whole face clear now, their age was far more obvious. He had presented younger than most of these northern folk, although he didn’t look anything like a nine year old. Maybe a thirteen year old? Was Yuuri that bad at reading the ages of children?

Viktor’s was going to _skin him alive_. Alphas were not known to be kind to anyone that laid a hand on their offspring.

“Oh dear, time to run,” Yuuri mutters calmly to himself while frantically scrambling for his pack, hands shaking so much they almost drop his stone knife. He starts into the forest at a dead sprint.

“Stop! Get back here! Get him mutt!” Bellows the child, waving his arms around angrily from the snowy ground. The hound had been giving a half-hearted pursuit of Yuuri, right up til the child shouted. It rounds back to sniff at the child after his outburst, clearly concerned for his health, to the son’s absolute disgust.

Yuuri has just reached the safety of dense trees when something snags – hard – on his pack. He jerks back sharp enough to sprain the muscles up and down the left side of his neck. A hand as hard as metal grasps at the scruff of his reindeer fur outfit and hauls him sideways.

He gets thrown into the trunk of a tree roughly enough that snow in the empty branches rains down. Having his pack trapped between his spine and the tree hurts. Yuuri grimaces and shuts his eyes, too afraid to look at whose caught him.

“Katsuki?”

Oh dear.

Yuuri breathes deep through his nose. It feels like it’s the only noise in the entire forest. Viktor has frozen solid where he leans against Yuuri, fingers lax where they had been tight.

“Hello.”

Safe to say, that was not what Yuuri expected to be the next words from the alpha’s mouth. Very slowly, with extreme caution, Yuuri opens one eye just enough to see out from between dark eyelashes.

Viktor is incredibly close. He’s utilised the same tactic Yuuri used on the omega (the _son_ , don’t panic, don’t panic, oh god, he feels sick) with his hands fisted around Yuuri’s neck and collar, his forearms rested across his chest, and elbows digging into the serratus muscles beside Yuuri’s lungs.

Viktor was panting. He must have been running, towards his barking hound or after Yuuri, maybe both. In the close quarters, the air between them was rapidly warming up, fogging with the steam from their mingling breaths.

Since Viktor was yet to move, Yuuri decided it was up to him to grit his teeth and take a brave step forward.

“I am _so_ sorry,” Yuuri sags against the tree, his words coming out in one long release of a held breath. His hands move to clasp together, in prayer possibly, but since Viktor’s arms are braced across his chest, they end up just knocking against Viktor’s upper arms and it’s just sort of… ‘oh, Viktor’s arms’.

Yuuri lets his head fall forwards, so when he winces it’s hidden behind shaggy hair.

“That’s okay.” Viktor’s words are very soft, whispered through lips that are were parted by only the barest of margins. Yuuri knows this because Viktor licked his lips before he spoke. “Hey, what are you doing all the way out here? You must be cold!” The alpha then uses his hold on Yuuri’s furs to tug on them, as if buttoning a coat up for him.

The tugs are forceful, pulling Yuuri off the tree trunk and closer to Viktor’s body. The alpha is now started to step away, his hands yet to removed themselves from the front of Yuuri’s furs.

Yuuri lets himself follow without resistance, all fight gone from his body. Viktor slings one arm over Yuuri’s shoulders, which jostles him a bit, and they start walking side by side back to where Yuuri left the son and hound.

Right, cause Viktor thought Yuuri ‘was cold’. Maybe they were just going to ‘have a chat’ followed by exchanging ‘pleasant goodbyes’ and Yuuri could ‘continue on’ his ‘merry way’.

“I was actually looking for you, I mean, not looking for you but – I mean, I’ve been planning to talk with you once it was a respectable time once, you know, winter,” Viktor then peters off, as if he actually expects Yuuri to know what he was meant to, you know, know.

Yuuri casts fruitlessly around for a response as Viktor’s wide blue eyes turn to him.

“Uhhh, yeah.” He answers, hopefully too quiet for the alpha to actually here. “Once again, I’m so sorry. I didn’t think, and it’s completely out of line for me to behave like that. I accept full responsibility for the incident.” Viktor continues to stare at him, like he wasn’t even listening. Yuuri lowers his eyebrows a fraction, in confusion, and at the change in expression the other man’s spine snaps straight.

“Oh, Yuri? Don’t worry about it, it was probably his fault anyway. Actual it’s quite a good way for you two to meet, now that I think about it.” Viktor seems to have hit his stride, and launches into rapid conversation, blissfully ignorant to the way the omega shuffling under his arm has gone rigid. Almost died-in-a-frozen-lake worthy rigidness. “I mean, I was a little bit worried since Makka never barks like that, normally, but Yuri looked more embarrassed than hurt.”

There is was again. His name. Now that it had rolled off Viktor’s tongue a second time in as many moments, Yuuri could almost hear the differences in in, like tɔr'gay and tɔ'gay, there was just something slightly sharper about the name.

Then again Yuuri had never heard Viktor speak the language of his island home, maybe that was just the way he pronounced it.

No. Where would he have learned Yuuri’s name? It was impossible. Yuuri goes almost exclusively by Katsuki since leaving home. Only Phichit calls him Yuuri, and Phichit was worlds away. Last time Yuuri had seen the monk and Funan princeling, he was on the back of a camel heading into the great western inland, grand designs of finding cities of gems and silks all he could talk about.

“We were out re-doing the inner border, and it got a bit later than I realised. I sent him ahead to lead the way home. Wanted to test how good his sense of direction was you know, perceptions get funny when it shifts into night. Let me tell you, he was doing _badly._ Don’t tell him that – well maybe tell him that,  wait – you tell him that, later though. We’d almost gone in a perfect circle. It’s a miracle he managed to get from Yakov’s to mine – I mean, an honest to ancestor’s miracle. He’s got the path memorised after travelling it so often with Yakov and me, but what if he gets blown off course? What then?”

“Are you talking about me?!”

Viktor jumped, as if genuinely frightened. The dormant trees part to reveal the youngling omega, hood redrawn and scarf bundled back around his face. They’ve got their spear back, and the hound still follows at their heels. Swinging from their free hand is Yuuri’s fur cap.

The youngling holds the cap out to them, and when Yuuri doesn’t take it fast enough, they cast it down at their feet.

“Oh, thank you,” Yuuri says with genuine appreciation. Viktor’s sharp words almost drown out Yuuri’s surprised voice.

“Yuri! Don’t just throw nice things on the ground like _rags_.” Viktor releases the arm he had glued around Yuuri’s shoulders to scoop the cap up. He shoves it back into his son’s arms hard enough to make the boy stumble.

The son shares a wide-eyed look with Yuuri, so briefly that he almost considers himself mad for seeing it at all, white shock flashing across his chubby face. Then he seems to square himself back up just as quick.

“Give it back in a _decent manner,_ this time.”

Viktor doesn’t have his hand across the nape of his son’s neck, but the tone of his voice defiantly evokes the image of it.

With scowl redrawn, the youngling stiffly holds it out. Very quickly, Yuuri takes it from him with both hands, glancing between them to gauge if he was right in doing so.

Viktor beams, looking for all the world like he wasn’t physically capable of snapping at anyone. The youngling continues to be sullen. “Yuri, this is Katsuki. Katsuki, this is Yuri.” Still beaming like a blissful idiot. With smile unchanging, Viktor’s eyes snap just a bit wider and his voice drops. “Show _a bit_ of respect, Yuri.”

Viktor saying his-name-but-not-his-name in such a tone of voice sends a cold shiver down his spine. The full body flinch was so obvious Yuuri didn’t even bother devoting the time to worrying if the other’s noticed or not. Maybe they just thought he was cold, or intimidated. Yuuri briefly lets his eyes flutter shut as his brain registers that it hadn’t been a bad shiver. It was a good shiver.

Was this his life now?

“Oh yeah, Katsuki! What I was meaning to ask you about was to do with Yuri here. I need a bit of a hand raising him over the spring, you know, young omegas and all that – I mean, whoah, am I right?”

Absolutely not.

Viktor was lining him up with his big blue eyes. There was no way Yuuri was going to play mother hen to Viktor’s youngling.

Yuuri would rather be dead in the cold, cold ground.


	5. Middlings of Spring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I live. This fic lives. Lets try reverse psychology and say the next chapter will take an almost-year as well. Sorry, the wait was a combination of 'you can't just write this fic, you need to FEEL this fic' and falling out of the core of the fandom.
> 
> Props to Satbiym who had a go at proof-reading this. They are very sweet.

**-**

**春のお中間 (Middlings of Spring)**

**-**

A shrill voice cuts through the quiet spring afternoon.

“… would know this. You’re frustrating and… dense!” The echoes of what sounds like a young boy’s anger-pitched scream sends Yuuri’s head snapping up.

Yuri? It could only be him. There is a second scream, wordless this time and nothing but frustrated volume. Yuuri half expects to find the boy down between the driftwood piles and brown grass, dramatically rolling around with a twisted ankle.

“Go slink off into your woods and refuse to show up at your own den-site!”

Yuuri’s gaze scans down the wet peddle shore, darting from youngling shaped lump to lump. To his side Makkachin is also taking intense interest in the ruckus, pulling herself to his feet.

 _There_. Down the shore, over a beached tree trunk, up a dune of rocks, amongst some small trees, stands Yuri.

But he wasn’t alone; Yuuri could spy a silhouette of a second person hidden by the shade.

The shape is unmistakable, and Yuuri’s heart jolts. The figure is slouched over, leaning towards Yuri.

_He’s back._

The second man turns and walks away.

 _Leaving?_ Yuuri teeters on the balls of his feet, his fingers tightly gripping the rough fish netting he had been trying to untangle.

Yuri visibly braces himself and draws in air. Yuuri jolts when the screaming resumes, abrasive against the peace of the still lake. _Why are they fighting?_

“Walking away again? I’m sure that’s sending a _real_ good message to Katsuki about how much you _value_ the _kind_ donation of his time to heal _your_ young charge who _he_ maimed in the first place!”

They’re talking about him.

The colour drains from Yuuri’s skin. _I’m sure that’s sending a real good message to Katsuki._ What does Yuri mean by that? What message has he been trying to sen-

Viktor’s own voice rumbles across the flat ground. It’s a sound which has become unfamiliar to Yuuri. The man’s been scarce since the grasses rose up.  Another language on another tongue. His warm voice rises throughout the sentence.

“…not here for me. Detests my presence, flat out. He doesn’t mind pitying you though, with all your lies about broken legs and missing lungs.”

“Well sorry I actually followed through on the plan, while all you did was stare like he was gonna disappearing like a fire-dream! One ‘no thanks’ and you curl up like a puppy dog? What sort of alpha are you? And I actually did get hurt falling down those rocks! It wasn’t a lie.”

Viktor disappears into the tree line.

“Oh, cry water for my crops.”

“What crops? You think farming’s stupid!”

The world turns momentarily unsuspended. Yuuri remains riveted, panting, wishing he hadn’t heard that.

It’s just a few sentences. Out of context too. Likely he’s heard it all wrong.

“I’m a… fire-dream?” Yuuri whispers the expression in his own voice, trying to taste its meaning.

The answer does not unravel itself.

Something good. No. Something bad? Oh of course it’s something bad. It sounds like the name for daemon-blooded travellers. Vicious hellish visions who flicker in and out on the horizon, leaving forest fires in their wake.

Yuuri is left to sit, feeling unwelcome and stupid on the lake shore.

Viktor has vanished and Yuri is marching off. Occasionally the youngling will pick up a stone and hurl it into the lapping water and scream.

Makkachin resumes her spot stretched out across the grass, giving the distant boy a sour look. They both watch Yuri try to snap a branch thicker than his arm. The wood doesn’t take it lying down, and nearly splinters his face off in return.

“Do you wanna go after him or…?” Makkachin curls back up, perfectly unconcerned. Leaving her sunning spot is obviously not worth it.

Her curly coat is still half-wet from swimming – an entirely unhelpful action on her part – during Yuuri’s attempt to teach Viktor’s son fishing skills. The boy had gotten fed up with getting splashed and knotting nets up, so left to change clothes.

Gods, young omegas were fussy. He hadn’t been nearly as bad when he was that age.

Although, there was that one time Mari never let him forget

(There was only one way to discover if flower petals made good pillow stuffing, and they should all be grateful he sacrificed his time so they didn’t have to.)

Gods, young omegas. And now the boy has leapt straight into a fight with his alpha father.

It’s not his place to be involved. Or have overheard it, for that matter.

But.

The fight was… about him.

_Detests my presence, flat out. He doesn’t mind pitying you though._

So they didn’t know that Yuuri knew. It didn’t take a medical healer to see Yuri wasn’t as injured as he made himself out to be.

He’s not an idiot.

Yuuri hadn’t thrown him _that_ hard.

The youngling in question hurls his last rock and collapses onto the ground, vibrating with anger only seen in the young.

“Maybe I should…” Yuuri sighs.

He doesn’t.

Not for the first time, Yuuri wonders why he’s still here. Dragged into being an audience-of-one to a surreal family drama.

He had the right idea from the start. _Don’t do it_ , he had warned himself. _You can’t play families with him, it’ll kill you._

To give himself credit, he had said no. But then Viktor had gone quiet and unreadable, and blood had started seeping from the holes in the son’s pant-knees, and Yuuri had genuinely thought _if he_ _sees that I’m fucked._

_And not in the good way._

Then Yuri had started breathing funnily, gasping for air wetly and thin.

“Ah shit, it hurts.” The boy had hissed, clutching his father, half collapsing into Viktor’s arms, a dramatic flair Yuuri would spend many nights marvelling at later on, all the while kicking himself for falling for an old trick.

Omegas pretending to be hurt. Needy. Soft. _Baiting_ , people would call it.

Yuuri, startled and scared, had failed to see through it. Guilt had consumed him from hurting Viktor’s youngling like a savage. It was horrible. It was – Gods – embarrassing. He had been on the verge of ugly, heaving sobs, barely holding it together in the face of Viktor’s gentle fretting for Yuri.

And that’s the story of how Yuri, obsessed with violence and pride, got his way with Yuuri, the man who took his breath away: by spear-tackling him into the snow.

But after all the nights and days they’ve spent together since, Yuuri has to admit, Yuri has grown on him. He feels an equal mix of protectiveness and intimidation for his self-declared apprentice.

It’s like raising a tiger cub, watching it quickly get bigger and bigger and bigger.

_“So you like, just live on your own?”_

_“Um,” cue anxious glance at Viktor, who was determinedly staring straight ahead, “yes.”_

_“As an omega? For how long?”_

_“Ever since leaving my mother-den, really. On and off.”_

_“Even when you were that young? That’s so cool! What’s it like?”_

_“Well, I, well… it’s scary, but very… free. I follow my nose, or my stomach, or my dreams, and they lead me to where I need to go.”_

_The youngling had gone quiet while Yuuri was fumbling with his words. To date, it was the most timid he’s ever seen the boy._

_“That’s what I want to be. Free, like you.”_

But if Yuri was a tiger cub, Viktor was ice. As his lands defrosted, he melted away too.

This is Yuuri’s theory: Viktor doesn’t want him here, all the more evident by the impressive display of hinted-at directions and threats in the cave. Copper knife, cold behaviour, traveller blessing gifts. If it were up to Viktor, he’d be chased off. But the son had wanted Yuuri around. So, Viktor had gritted his teeth and allowed him to stay. For Yuri’s sake.

Sometimes Yuuri thinks he should run in the night and save himself.

In his heart of hearts, Yuuri can’t leave. Viktor, a god, has opened up heaven’s gates and extended to Yuuri a conditional invitation. Yuuri, who while blocking his eyes and trying to resist the thrall, had tripped and rolled into the nectar meadows.

It’s too late to start looking for a way out. He’s already eaten the fruit.

So what if the god is never in heaven? Gods have important duties in the realms. If he ignores the fact that he’s located at the den-site and not on a mountainside, it’s almost the same as before. Watching from a distance. Imagining.

It’s good. Maybe even for the best. Viktor is only meant for looking. Yuuri doesn’t deserve to touch.

The one time he did touch… the shame still crawls through his conscience. It makes him scared to talk, afraid to meet the blue all-seeing eyes, in case Viktor remembers.

Yuuri goes back to the fish netting, and thinks and thinks and thinks, until his mind is back where it had started. Dark, alone, and with nothing new to show for it.

During the reds of dusk, Little Yuri approaches him.

He crouches down with pinched brows, eyes sharp. The boy doesn’t say anything. They watch each other first. The pebbles protesting under Yuri’s unnoticeably shifting weight.

“Why are you even here?”

What sort of answer can he give? ‘ _My weak will’? ‘I first saw Viktor on a late autumn day floating across ice, since then my life as stubbornly refused to right itself’?_

“You want me here.”

The boy’s eyes narrow.

“That’s not an answer,” he accuses.

Yuuri is tired of this.

“Why am I here?” Yuuri squares his jaw and asks the boy. A youngling. Slowly, Yuri’s head tilts, face calming with a realisation.

“You don’t… have even a suspicion?” He has a suspicion alright. This family is as suspect as a garden flourishing in the deepest pit of hell. “Huh,” Little Yuri says, plonking himself down in the pebbles beside the bigger omega.

“You’re just as bad,” the boy smirks. “And somehow I’m the one too young to know any better?”

Yuuri searches his face in the fading light. Everything is still visible under his night-vision, but changed. Shades of silver and slices of white. A whole second arrangement of beauty.

He decides he might as well say it. It’s dancing there, right behind his teeth, rattling around inside his skull.

“Viktor wants me gone?” It must be what started the fight.

Yuri very slowly brings his eyes around to stare at him between two locks of falling hair.

“You might actually be worse.”

The response leaves Yuuri feeling empty. The nerve it had taken to pose the question had his innards clenched up in a tight ball. They’re all still clenched up now, waiting for the response.

“At… what?” The moment the last word is spoken, Yuri grabs his sleeves. The smaller omega hauls on the arms, this succeeding in making Yuuri lean over a little, but mostly resulting in Yuri dragging his own lighter body across the pebbles. Drawn closer together, the youngling locks eyes with Yuuri.

“Do you seriously think Viktor wants you to leave? Do you really not think anything else is going on here, not a single other, tiny idea?”

The little omega’s eyes are poison green, Yuuri realises in this moment.

“It makes sense,” Yuuri says weakly.

“The only reason, truly?” Yuuri repeats, urging and firm.

“What else is there? He threatened me to leave, but the second you ask me to stay he allowed me absolute freedom.”

“Threatened you?”

“What else am I to think when I’m held, tending to his child - ”

“Ahhh, what?”

“- like some sad play at being a proper omega, when he knows I’ve never had my own. Why? To rub it in?”

“Wait-” Yuri tries to cut in, a hand coming up, attempting to pause him. Yuuri takes only the briefest of interests in it. He’s really on a roll now. It’s like the last chop to a tree.

“The saddest thing about it is, I don’t care. I don’t care! Hurt me, I don’t give a shit, I’ve been hurting for years. I’m a monster in your eyes, an animal, aren’t I? Just say it!”

“Katsuki!” Yuri loudly shouts, returning both hands to Yuuri’s shirt and shaking him.

“Don’t touch me!”

“Katsuki! Katsuki, shut the fuck up! Erklik-Erklikhan give me strength,” Yuri swears.

“I don’t know who that is. I don’t know anything about you people,” Yuuri wants to go back to the start of winter and sleep.

“Calm down, calm down, alright?” Limp and unsure arms wrap about his body. With his nose pressed into Yuri’s shoulder, Yuuri’s frustrations begin to settle.

His father was an omega. He had carried him like this, as a child, tucked into deer fur.

“Katsuki, I promise, if anyone makes you cry, Viktor will rip their rib-cage out. So get all your tears out now, before he gets back. I like my rib-cage.”

Yuuri cracks his eyes open, not expecting those words.

There is a sinking feeling, deep in his guts, of having missed something important.

“And how fucking _dare you_ …” Fingers dig into Yuuri’s arms. He starts to squirm as the youngling vibrates with a growl, continuing, “… mistake _me_ for that idiot’s _son_.” Yuuri goes still. “We look nothing alike.”

Unease furls tighter in Yuuri’s chest.

“If you’re not…” He doesn’t even want to think it.

A young and beautiful omega like Yuri, living freely under an unrelated and unbonded alpha. Yuri screams like he just heard Yuuri’s thoughts. Shrill and terrified.

“He’s my cousin. Practically my cousin. Basically my stupidest cousin to ever burdened the human race. You thought I was? What?” The youngling jolts to his feet. “How do you even come to that conclusion? What part of Viktor, sitting there pining every day and eye-fucking you every night, screams ‘Father’?”

Exhaustion starts to creep inside him, keeping up with this conversation was becoming too hard.

“So he’s not… involved. With anyone?”

“Are you – honest to -” Yuri slaps a hand over his eyes and mutters into his collar. “ _How on earth did he find someone even stupider than him?_ Not my father – not anyone’s father – has not dicked anyone down on the regular in years!”

“And you-” Yuuri tentatively straightens up, only to have his hand slapped away.

“I’m exiling you and your stupid arse from my den.” Yuri swirls and stalks away, a mirror of Viktor earlier. “Goodbye Oh Traumatised One, I thought I was doing good by. Go and be an idiot in Viktor’s den – _where you belong.”_ Yuri adjusts his clothes and jams his hands on his hips. “And forget about me covering for your heats anymore. Do you know how weird it looks, that I lasted here for a moon with only one heat, but the second you show up I’m having pseudo-heats out my arse. It’s borderline inhuman.”

Yuri dramatically stomps as he goes up the foreshore and into the grass forest edge, stopping when he reaches the self-styled den constructed amongst the tight trees.

Very pointedly, the youngling glares over his shoulder before throwing the leather hide down over the entrance. The temporary lean-to made from wood and borrowed hides of canvas visibly shakes at the huffy movement.

A few beats later, there is a dull cry of revulsion followed by Makkachin being unceremoniously shoved out, all the while looking disgruntled and sleep-deprived.

Viktor’s den looms beyond the trees, in the other direction of Yuri’s temporary one. In the encroaching nigh it looks like an entrance to the underworld. Dark, untouched, and unknown. He had never dared go near it before. The energy coming from it had been too much. His hands start trembling and heart racing just thinking about it.

Yuuri licks his suddenly dry lips.

Darkness descends in truth.

Viktor’s den continues to loom.

No. No. Absolutely not. Just looking at it makes his spine sweat.

Yuuri miserably makes his way up to Yuri’s shelter between the birch trees.

“Yuri-”

“No!” Is the angry reply, muffled through the bundled-timber walls of the shelter.

 _For the love of…_ Yuuri breathes deep and stares up at the arriving stars.

“You know I can’t just _go into_ the den.” His den. Viktor’s den. _The_ den.

“Ah, yes you absolutely can, and will.”

“I can’t -”

“Katsuki, I swear, grow a pair.” The four layers of hanging hide are pushed aside to reveal Yuri’s demonic face. “You’re Viktor’s guest, not mine. This – I’m not sure if you’ve noticed – is not Viktor’s den. That is.” A very sharp hand gesture is directed across the field. “So either accept your host’s hospitality graciously, or grab your stuff and leave. I’m not going to be the blanket you two idiots hide under anymore, okay? Stop being an idiot. I’m not an idiot. Idiot.” With an angry swish, Yuri disappears from view once more.

Yuuri and Makkachin sit side by side, staring forlornly at the sub-standard stack of timber. Inside he can hear Yuri arranging the furs and muttering darkly.

Well, it’s time to think positively about all this. Nervously, he turns around. Through some trees, across the clearing, over a seasonal stream bed, lies the den.

It might as well be a sleeping giant bear.

Viktor left this evening. Usually, he’s gone all night. It stands to reason that Yuuri would most probably have the den all to himself.

Slowly and silently, he and Makkachin creep closer. She follows him with a confused but steadily growing delighted expression.

When he’s close enough to be feeling faint she abandons him, running ahead and jumping at the door.

The reality of the situation grips Yuuri. He’s close enough to see the texture in the walls, the arch of the doorway, the leaves of the creepers that grew across the roof.

“I’m not going to just-” A bird screams above them, sending Yuuri crawling to the ground, nearly tripping over a half-collapsed drying rack left in the grass. Hands protectively covering his head, Yuuri searches the dark and empty sky above him for bats or vampires or something equally ominous.

“That was a sign Makkachin, don’t act like it wasn’t. No, I know you, don’t do that,” The dog starts trotting on the spot impatiently, yipping under her breath. Each one progressively louder, as if trying to hurry Yuuri along.

He almost collapses back to his knees when drawing in front of the door. The sheer presence of it before him is overwhelming. It was like a holy site. A treasured hallow he has been hunting ever since catching a glimpse of a god in magenta and gold, flying across the lake.

Yuuri can smell Viktor. Not just his scent, but also the years of activity and age, layered like sensory tree stump rings around the walls.

Walls don’t move or change. People never think to clean them.

This is a moment. A moment in his life, and there is a dog trying to knock him over.

“Alright, okay, I’ll just,” he searches for a handle, “push it then.” Pushing does not work. Something is jamming the door. “Pull it then,” he runs his hands over the door a few times before finding a rough cord of rope tucked into the frame. Yuuri gives it a tug, the door creaks and moves happily.

Peering through the crack, all Yuuri can see is a dark descending corridor.

The door swings back like someone’s kicked it, smacking into his cheekbone and his foot, with two of his toes bearing the brunt of the pain.

“Why the fuuuccc-” Makkachin continues to try jamming herself through a gap barely wide enough for a snake, and as soon as Yuuri stumbles back, she succeeds in pushing the door open.

The door swings wide and Makkachin looks back expectantly as Yuuri leans over and tries to breathe through the pain.

Quickly the sharp stinging under his nails pulses away. Too soon, he’s stepping forward into the solid darkness of the den after his would-be-crippler and soon-to-be-nemesis.

He pulls the door shut behind him slowly. It creaks the whole way, louder than reasonably possible. As they move furthur inside Makkachin’s amused snuffs echo.

The entry corridor slopes down before him, a descending floor of over-packed clay and flat-sided rocks. Every step Yuuri takes is tested and silent, trying not to leave a mark. He walks side-ways, arms tentatively out, breathing through his mouth.

_It’s just a den. Just a den. Completely normal._

Lining the tight walls of the corridor is stacked firewood.

Too quickly the floor flattens out, inviting him into the security of earthen walls rising up around him.

_Don’t look too closely. Don’t look too closely._

Dead in front of him sits Makkachin.

She glances at him, and Yuuri glowers back. “And what was the rush, my Alpha?” He mockingly asks her. She turns back to the fire-place which dominates the centre of the round den. It’s cold and burned down. Discarded cooking utensils sit around its stone ring, like someone had been disturbed. “It doesn’t… smell like he’s been here in a while.” In fact, it doesn’t smell like anyone has spent much time down here at all recently. Only the passing scent of Yuri rustling around in the food stores is fresh in the air.

It still smells overwhelmingly of Viktor. How could it not? This is his home. There wasn’t just the scent of Viktor down here, but the happenings of his life coating everything. On the surface of his tongue Yuuri could almost taste them. Delicious and sweet, but overpowering, with nothing to distract from Viktor’s scent.

Tough canvas mats cover the floor. On the other side of the den, colourfully patterned carpets take over. Five sitting cushions are scattered round the fire-place. The sleeping area is not immediately visible, which is wise. Yuuri does not linger his eyes trying to find it.

“Do we want a fire or not?” He asks the fireside hound. “It’s not too cold inside.” Resting along the stone ring is an old spear with no arrowhead. One end of it blackened from moving about ash. The moment he picks it up, Makkachin starts to pace excitedly.

“A fire then,” he accepts. The heat will clean the air, and the smoke will smother Viktor’s scent well enough. Easily visible against the fire-ring is a small wooden box containing bark shavings and dried grasses. A small bag rests amongst the starter materials, and Yuuri finds a fleck of flint inside. This will be easy, he knows where the fire-wood is kept, everything is here.

Yuuri turns back to the corridor and collects enough for a small fire.

When he comes back Makkachin’s snout darts out of a ceramic jar.

“What’s in your mouth?!” She scampers to the other side of the pit and bows down to chew on something that cracks in protest.

She twists her head. Between her teeth is a sun-reduced bone.

Why was he worried? She is Viktor’s dog. Yuuri’s seen her come in and out. She’s allowed in here. If she chews something, it is her fault. Isn’t it?

While getting the fire properly aflame, Yuuri ponders how much moral responsibility an animal can reasonably have.

Surely there is some. Makkachin is old enough to be a mother if the right omega sire were to cross her path. Whelping a litter and raising pups was a huge responsibility. As the guardian of Viktor den-site, she was also entrusted a lot of responsibility in that role as well.

“Are you a good guardian?” She pauses in chewing the bone to ponder his question. Yuuri circles the fire and sits down beside her, rubbing her bouncy fur.

“You are very soft after your swim,” Yuuri muses, an observation Makkachin does not seem to care about, but enjoys Yuuri’s attention regardless.

Her presence as Viktor’s hound perplexes Yuuri. Alpha’s rarely take alpha hounds as theirs. The animals were less obedient and prone to wandering off. Alpha hounds worked best with omega masters, where the dogs were known to be besotted and endlessly loyal. Yuuri’s dog as a child had been an alpha. The hound had never listened to a word Mari had said.

Maybe this was only true for male Alpha dogs. Possibly Makkachin didn’t mind being near a larger alpha so much as a female. Alpha females were typically more peace-making and prone to cooperative societies.

When Yuuri’s mind drifts back from his thoughts, he looks away from the fire in shock.

Now with their teeth firmly sunken into the new wood, the flames have brought the den to life in warm oranges and dancing shadows. Polished stones and forged glass shards, previously unnoticeable in the dark, glitter. Delicate beams of coloured light stirred ever so slightly in the draft caused by the fire.

Yuuri sits, captivated.

Why did Viktor have to be like this? An enchanter. Why couldn’t the alpha find it in himself to not be everything Yuuri wanted?

In the corner of his eyes, Yuuri finally sees the sleeping place. A sheet hangs from the ceiling in front of it, masking most of it from view. Before in the dark the fabric had been unnoticeable, but Yuuri could now see the red of its colour and the shadows under its ripples.

Viktor’s den was not as perfectly circular as it appeared to be from the outside. It was a clever trick. The second dug-out recedes almost unnoticeably back into the walls, its height far lower than the rest of the den.

Yuuri releases his breath, looks down at his hands and then back up.

Viktor won’t be back until morning. He was never going to know if Yuuri just looked.

Padding across the soft carpets, Yuuri draws back the curtain like a serpent was caged inside.

A raised wooden palette fits the entirety of the recession. Beautiful fabrics are piles across it. The walls have been washed down with lime clay, and over the top of the new smooth surface beautiful patterns and images have been painted on.

Loose netting clings to the low ceiling. Yuuri needs to duck to look under. Inside the netting even more pillows and weightless sheets hang. When Yuuri crawls in closer he spies a machete sheathed and tucked into the netting alongside a beautiful silk which drapes out of the netting and to the bedding.

Of all the blankets, only two are fur. Less than Yuuri imagined. One is a sheep skin. Under his fingers it feels thicker than the kinds he knows.

The second is a massive sheet which lays across the entirety of the palette. It was a sewn together match of red fox and varying fawn shades of rabbit. He wants to touch it.

Smell it.

_Don’t be weird._

Carefully he crouches and staggers back into the den. Yuuri drops the curtain forlornly behind him.

_Would’ve be good for nesting._

Yuuri paces around and around the fire-place, his socks nearly wearing down the carpets. There is a ridiculous amount of cleared space to move down in this half-dug manifestation of warmth and temptation, considering how small and almost _unnoticeable_ it looks from outside.

Viktor stores his possessions neatly against the walls. Yuuri’s eyes roam them now, eager to stare. There are multiple engraved chests, large, long, medium, ornate, rudimentary, scuffed. The baskets are even more varied, wide and wicker, soft and flaxen, lidded or tied closed. Open.

Pegs stick out from the seam between wall and ceiling. The fur coat from winter hands abandoned beside a stack of leaning spears.

What does he have to lose? And why is he restraining himself? Viktor wasn’t coming home any time soon. This might be the only night Yuuri gets with the den.

Eventually, Yuuri pads over to the bed again. He takes his socks off, then his coat, then his over-layers, until he’s down to his last soft under-garment. A mid-thigh cream fleece blouse, thin from wear and washes.

Yuuri folds his possessions neatly to the side, purring at the sight of _his_ inside _Viktor’s_.  Reverently he draws the curtain aside, securing it half open with a rope thread which hands expectantly.

The bed smells warm and used, but clean. Yuuri moves around a bit first on his knees, unsure, before burrowing into the spot that smells strongest of the owner.

Makkachin joins once he’s stopped fussing and tossing like a trapped creature. Together they curl up and watch the moving lights through the half drawn curtain, secured aside with a thread which hangs expectantly down the curtain’s own body.

The fire burns down and the lights stop glittering. Yuuri forbids himself the indulgence, but his mind goes there anyway.

He closes his eyes and imagines this is his bed. This spot is where he tucks away every night. His mate is out on errands, but he’s due back any moment now. He’ll join Yuuri in bed, rumbling content and proud of him. They’ll reaffirm their bond through timeless sessions of kissing and grooming, than fall asleep together.

When the weight of Makkachin shifts, he imagines it’s a crawling youngling.

He is young and holding a three legged toad. He is up to his thighs in a warm pond. The thick-skinned toad hangs calmly in the child-tight grasp, unconvinced by Yuuri’s attempts to extract a passage of ancient wisdom from it. This was back before his mother-den burned down. Yuuri couldn’t tell why he knew it, but he did. A growl rolls out from deep below the ground. The pond Yuuri starts to boil and rumble. The toad burst to life, leaping free. “Hurry!” His daemon-kin screams. “They’ll kill if they find out!”

A loud bark breaks Yuuri’s dream. The memory of it evaporating like fog before steam.

For a handful of beats, Yuuri didn’t recognise where he was. His gut-reaction was the cave, and when he went to roll, his elbow smacked into a wall.

Hands roam a curled wall, it makes him think of a small place he hadn’t slept in years.

The sight of Makkachin’s dark figure pacing in front of the bed was what drew him back.

Yuuri’s eyes quickly blow wide, adjusting to the lack of light.

The massive hound sounds angry, grumbling under her breathe and snuffing at the air. Her tail wags seldomly. She smells full of adrenaline.

A noise cuts through the deep-night air. The sound of a door opening and, very slowly, being shut.

Makkachin explodes, running towards the entrance way, barking with every step. A large figure comes into view. Their clothes are covered in blood, and they carried in their arms something large. They growled back at Makkachin just as viciously.

The silver hair alerts Yuuri to their identity before Makkachin figures it out. Only when she jumps up on him and starts growling back into his face do her ears perk up in recognition. In that moment Viktor’s twisted and shoved her off him, snarling through clenched teeth at her until she sulks away.

Yuuri takes the opportunity to flatten himself into the blankets. Alphas didn’t have night-vision like omegas do. As long as he doesn’t start the fire back up, Viktor won’t notice the new presence.

The smell of blood was masking everything. It was probably why Makkachin struggled to identify him.

Several blankets have twisted around Yuuri. Several more still lay heavy over him, hiding him from view. Yuuri peers between the gaps, watching Viktor work his way along the walls of the den.

Starting right beside the door, Viktor sits on a stool while toeing his boots off. After, Viktor crouches before a white-wooden chest. In it he chucks something small and stone which _chinks_ as it hits something equally hard.

And something larger. Something Yuuri hadn’t noticed, tucked under the bulk of the bundle Viktor had returned with.

It’s long and thin. As soon as it’s pulled free, Yuuri’s throat tightens. His body crystallises into an unmovable vulnerable hunk until the item disappearing into the large chest, the heavy lid is shut, and the latched is closed once more.

Yuuri’s released of ragged breathing feels too loud. Fast intakes to make up for the time spent breathless.

_What the fuck was that? Why does Viktor have it?_

Viktor doesn’t notice anything. He dumps the rest of the bundle beside the chest. A few things clatter in contact with the floor, but mostly the sound is a soft fabric waft.

His coat is peeled off and hung up. As Viktor moves away from it, Yuuri’s eyes widen at the amount of blood that covers the item. Outside, inside, back, front, sides, sleeves. Viktor keeps taking off clothing. All his over-clothes go, then his mid-clothes, until even his under-clothes are taken off and dropped on the ground around him. They are also dark with blood.

It had to be a large beast, to bleed enough to seep through so many layers.

Yuuri watches the nude form of the alpha move across the den, oblivious to his presence. Blood covers his hands, and is smeared across his face. There are even large lines of it down his neck and across his collar bone.

When Viktor starts fetching wood for the fire-pit, Yuuri can’t find it in himself to care about being seen. His eyes roam Viktor’s form, wondering what a man like that could do.

The last embers of Yuuri’s fire helps Viktor’s hastily made one catch aflame easily. Colours come to life again, and Yuuri can see the blood is thicker in certain slices down Viktor’s face.

Makkachin hasn’t moved from her spot against the far wall. She’s curled up and gone quiet, lying prone and low.

 _She’s submitting to him,_ Yuuri realises.

Viktor begins washing his body as the fire truly roars into life. As the man lifts a cloth from a basin of water, Yuuri registers just how jerky his movements are. Even as he wipes his own skin clean, the cloth misses half the blood.

Heat off the fire pushes air about the den. Fridges of the blood-scent waft over.

It’s human.

Something else hangs in the new air. Steady and stout, steadily growing more bitter and angry.

Alpha rut.

Viktor switches the cloth to his other hand and starts to clean his other arms. As water drips down from the cloth he jerks and growls at the water.

He’s non-verbal.

Inside, his omega shudders _perfectly._

This was where his omega wanted to be. Laid back in Viktor’s bedding, waiting for the rutting alpha to find him like a gift. Like a hare in a snare.

Two white eyes flick up and locked onto his.

Viktor becomes carved stone. Only the odd muscle tensing along his body betraying his mortality.

The river moss and roasting spice of Viktor’s scent darkens. It’s burning in a forgotten pot. It’s being ripped up at the roots. Yuuri’s not sure if he likes it. It reminds him of the last time.

Yuuri doesn’t want to repeat that time. He doesn’t want to fear Viktor and fight him.

What he wants is to lay here, and see what Viktor does when given free-reign.

The man stands up and prowls around the crackling fire.

Yuuri goes limp into the sheets, too tired to think.  Let Viktor answer these question. Let Viktor reveal the truth unquestionably.

Let Yuri be right.

Lips pull back over teeth. A hostile growl – the type which pins omegas down – shakes the air. Viktor steps forward like he intends to attack. The large alpha comes to a crouch before the curtain.

Hands still wet from bathing fly down to grab handfuls of sheets. Viktor pulls the fabrics, ripping the bedding out into the main area. Blankets start balling up under Viktor’s legs, reminiscent of a wolverine digging up an old kill.

Sheets around Yuuri slide away, two by two, until Viktor finally grasps one twisted around Yuuri’s leg. He goes along with a squeak, not fighting it, simply keeping the stress from his muscles and the anxiety from his scent. Yuuri’s shirt rides up to his armpits as his body gets dragged under a quilt and pops out the other side directly underneath Viktor.

The man instantly grabs at his arms, pinning Yuuri down with his entire weight. For the first time genuine panic flares up as the larger and stronger creature immobilises him.

The growls had been so loud. When the sound abruptly stops, it feels like Yuuri’s ears have popped.

Up close Yuuri can see Viktor’s body is flushed with rut. He can also see the injuries, still red and wet. Cuts run across his face, purple bruising blooming around the sliced skin and along the cheek bone. The skin on one wrist looks as splintered as a branch snapped over a knee.

Viktor is gazing down at him silently. Strands of hair have escaped a half ripped braid. They nearly tickle at Yuuri’s skin, hanging just above, teasing him with their red-stained ends.

“He’s hurt,” Yuuri marvels under his breath, head turned to stare at the open insides of Viktor’s arm. Was it injury that triggers the ruts with this alpha, or ruts that caused the injury?

Viktor leans down with his weight in reaction to the whisper, body dropping lower than before. The alpha had been easing away so slowly Yuuri didn’t even notice it until the hold was re-applied.

He hasn’t done a good job of bathing. Blood still covers the crown of his head, his cheek, under his jaw and down his neck. Yuuri knows his back is painted across with red still.

Still, he is beautiful. His skin is a misleading healthy rose, and the muscles gleam with beading water. Yuuri follows a few droplets as they lick down Viktor’s body, barely hanging on as they slide over a heaving chest and rising muscles.

Flicking his gaze back to Viktor’s white eyes, Yuuri tenses. The black pupils are roaming down Yuuri’s own body, lazy and self-satisfied.

Embarrassment shoulders its way back to the front of Yuuri’s mind. The feeling of being appraised is itchy and burns. He tries to move under Viktor’s hold for the first time, squirming to pull his fleece dress down over the exposed length of his body.

The only part that isn’t free to gleaming eyes is his shoulders and neck, too bundled in the risen shirt.

“ _Uzai_ ,” Yuuri groans. He whispers to the ceiling like a blasphemous prayer, “rutting does _such_ good things to you.” He wishes it didn’t. He wishes he didn’t have a thing for light eyes and dewy skin. He wishes the way Viktor’s scent over-produced made his nose curl up, like so many alpha’s before him.

Yuuri just wants to eat it. He can see the oily shine where its dripping from Viktor’s scent glands.

Viktor this whole time hasn’t done much more than look. He shifts his weight again, rising off the balls of his feet and settling down to his knees. He lowers even more, sitting across Yuuri’s bare thighs. Viktor’s skin is still freezing from the night outside.

The pinning weight disappears from his arms. His muscles stretch in relief, but Yuuri can’t find the courage nor the motivation to move.

The hands re-emerge at his sides, nails travelling up the gaps between his ribs to the centre of his stomach. Yuuri’s body splits in half with shivers, fine hairs raising along his spine in a long-forgotten instinct.

Viktor curls his hands out, until his wrists are all that touch Yuuri. Slowly he leans forward, wrists drawing up the centre of Yuuri, only stopping when the bunched dress forces it.

The glazed-eyed alpha pulls the shirt up over Yuuri’s head, then abandons the movement once access to the neck opens. Nails return to the skin as commandingly slow as ever, tracing around the base of Yuuri’s neck and reddening the skin.

Yuuri tries to tug the dress the rest of the way off, but his arms are constrained inside the coiled fleece, half of it trapped under his back still.

Being unable to see Viktor was not Yuuri’s idea of a good time. It might actually be an unfolding nightmare. Desperately but discreetly he twists his wrists around, trying to grab fabric and pull the dress up knuckle by knuckle length without distracting Viktor.

All higher thought evaporates as a hot tongue draws over his jugular.

Yuuri keens and rises off the bundled blankets, his gasps puffing back against his face.

Viktor continues unperturbed on his one-minded mission to scratch up Yuuri’s glands and hide them under salvia. The blatant and determined scent marking of his body makes Yuuri struggle in vain to touch back. The alpha doesn’t stop at his neck glands, dropping to the ones under his arm pits, breathlessly close to his nipples. Sometimes Viktor’s hand or hair would drag over them, and Yuuri would thrash his arms around, only getting more trapped.

Later, Viktor nips down Yuuri’s body to the insignificant glands that sit in the grooves of his hips.

As his mouth nipples into the soft skin of the indentation, his throat presses against Yuuri’s half risen cock.

“ _Kimochi iiiiii,”_ Yuuri chokes. That has to be on purpose. The man is torturing him.

His encouraging cry doesn’t have the desired effect. The other immediately pulls back, rising up Yuuri’s body and ripping the dress completely off. Yuuri breathes deep as fresh air bursts back into his lungs. Hovering above, Viktor observes him with a concerned stare.

They watch one another in a silence filled with rapid breaths. Viktor’s lips have darkened since he last saw them.

Those pale eyes narrow at him. Long eyelashes - only visible this close - almost touching.

Roughly hands grab Yuuri’s right arm, rolling him over with the help of a knee pushing into his ribs. He’s flipped on his stomach before he can so much as blink. Aggressively Viktor’s mouth finds its place biting at Yuuri’s shoulder. One hand is beside Yuuri’s face, holding up Viktor’s weight. The second hand starts between his shoulder blades and greedily feels its way down the spine.

 _Shit, this is it._ Yuuri thinks, nervous to the point of feeling sick. Suddenly, on his stomach, it feels real. Too fast, no words, not able to touch back. 

Rutting alphas are always so brutal and persistent, once they get the first taste.

Lips and teeth leave his skin. The hand pulls away at the small of his back. Yuuri tenses and waits for the next touch.

A soft cheek presses against the nape of his neck. Warm air steams across his skin as the alpha releases a long sigh.

The blankets dip as he rolls off Yuuri, then rolls again until an outstretched arm could barely touch him. Viktor sinks back into the disarray, eyes staring half-lidded at the ceiling, heart stuttering into a slow beat.

Viktor never looks over, or shifts again, or gives any indication he notices Yuuri - panting on his stomach and watching him wide-eyed.

Eyelids close over grey eyes. He can’t be? Asleep? Here Yuuri is, unable to catch his breath, and the alpha has, what, gotten bored and taken a nap?

Yuuri’s scent glands sting. Disturbed and irritated.

No, not irritated. Furious.

The heavy scent of the man clings to him like sweat. Water off Viktor’s body chills on Yuuri’s skin, giving him shivers.

Slowly, Yuuri eases onto his knees and pulls his under-garment back on. The fall of the fleece over his body makes his lungs shutter is relief. When his head remerges, for the barest of seconds he catches Viktor watching him.

Yuuri wets his lips and tries to breathe.

The mangled wrist of Viktor’s pulses red under the fire-light. Yuuri draws closer on his knees, fascinated by the transparent re-stitched skin stretched worryingly thin. Viktor’ rut-fast healing can only seal the surface. Any moment he could tear the wound open, and all the blood visible through the wound would weep onto the white sheet, the stitched red crosses swallowed up with new red.

Unnoticed blood still covers Viktor’s face. Yuuri wants to fetch the basin and wash him clean.

He sighs through his nose and carefully lays back into the blankets, pretending to be comfortable when he feels anything but.

The fire crackles.

A night-bird calls for its child.

Waves lap against the shore.

Viktor’s eyes snap up to him, and he growls before rolling away onto his side. The alpha groans as he slowly gets to his feet. Yuuri’s tongue feels like it has become stuck to the roof of his mouth at how towering Viktor is, standing up, as Yuuri lays small amongst mountains of sheets.

Then Viktor… walks away.

He is unsteady on his feet, slow and down trodden like an old ox. He isn’t hard anymore either, Yuuri can’t help but notice. Really, really, can’t help but notice.

Viktor gently lowers his battered body back onto the stool by the fire and resumes his washing like nothing ever happened.

Yuuri watches him silently the entire time. Viktor washes with slow dedication, like a stunned whale or something equally heavy and ancient. Unhurried. It feels like hours and all he's done is clean one arm.

Yuri was wrong.

Maybe, for an instant there, Viktor was interested in him in the way any alpha feels towards an omega while in rut, but that was only an instant. What went wrong? His face? Was it is face being revealed? Was it Viktor finally noticing the male-ness of Yuuri in the rush?

Yuuri reaches for his clothes and sets about dressing as quietly as he can. Then he stands and creeps step by step towards the door, trying not to draw attention. Viktor doesn’t seem to notice. It’s like he is dead asleep, animated by sheer will power alone.

Yuuri steps out into the cold night air and thinks, ‘ _I've fucked up'._

**-**

**Центр весны (Middlings of Spring)**

**-**

Under a low-slung tree in sunbeams lounges a purring man. His view is a magnificent one. Unparalleled.

The sky is so clear today - the slopes of the giant’s eyes they live inside are visible. Mountains loom to the south, Yakov and Lilia’s mountain barely holding onto its snow.

The best part of the view is his lake. It puddles around the hills like a cloak dropped on the floor.

Three creatures fish in the cold water. It doesn’t seem to be going well.

This amuses Viktor.

Day-dreams float around in peaceful haze. They centre on the handsome omega growing tired and joining Viktor in the soft grass. Sometimes he’ll strip off the wet clothes, sometimes he’ll be so chilled from wading in the lake he’ll press up tight to Viktor’s warmth.

Viktor drifts into bright sleep, constantly on the cusp of waking up. Rest only comes to him fitfully these days.

Something kicks at his shoulder.  Viktor starts awake. His world is far darker and colder than it was just before. The sunbeams have moved on without him; now the tree envelops him in impenetrable shade.

Above him hangs a young face, a scowl firmly set under wild hay hair.

Viktor stretches sleepily, ignoring Yuri as long as he dares.

The youngling’s jaw is working. He’s chewing on something, biting down on words he plans to say. So he can crush them into something and spit out at Viktor, no doubt.

“You need to make a decision regarding Katsuki,” Little Yuri barks.

Viktor blinks like a wolf recovering from a stumble. He opens his mouth to reply.

“Don’t speak,” Yuri is chewing bilberries. Viktor can see his tongue and fingertips are blackened from the juice. “He’s been here a half moon. Have you moved on to the second step of the plot to charm him? No. Courage of mice,” he sighs. Viktor contemplates grabbing his leg and pulling the boy off balance. “If you’re not going to bother courting him, get _rid_ of him.”

Viktor grits his teeth. He can’t.

“It’s not simple, he makes his own decisions-”

“Can you please start acting like it is simple, because I’m pretty sure-” Yura casts a conspiring look behind him, shoulders hunched, and jabs a thumb at the distant figure that is Katsuki trying to detangle a fishing net, “- with this guy, it is.”

Viktor purposefully does not follow the thumb’s direction.

“He doesn’t even want to be here.” _Trying to leave before the snows even melted_ “I’ve made it clear how I feel.” _Courting gifts, invitations to stay,_ “He hasn’t returned anything.” _Nothing_ “I won’t pursue someone whose trapped here out of courtesy, it’s impolite.”

_I don’t want to look at him more than I have to, if it’s a lost cause. But I want him to stay as long as I possible can keep him. Just for spring._

“Thanks to me, we’ve got him trapped here with us.” Yuri slaps his hand into his palm, punctuating each word like a mother trying to drive a lesson into a thick-headed crawler. “If that’s not perfect I don’t know what is. But what do you do? Disappear into the woods all day like you’re the unwanted visitor and I’m the alpha of the territory.”

Viktor grunts and flops an arm over his face. _Please don’t remind me Yura._

He really doesn’t want to start a fight. It’s dumb, and what would it look like to Katsuki? Appearing to be threatened by a youngling omega wasn’t exactly stellar.

But it was so hard not to be. The two omegas were stuck like sap, and Katsuki spent every one of Yuri’s sudden barrage of heats watching over him. _Watching over him_ whatever that means in the tiny pitiful den they have. Viktor hates it.

“You’ve barely seen each other three times in the entire moon he’s been here,” Yuri once again twists to glare down the shore at the blissfully unaware fisherman.

“That’s not true,” his voice is swallowed up by his elbow, but Yura’s hearing is always perfect when he wants it to be.

“Sorry, you _see_ him all the time. But he doesn’t notice you when you’re staring like a hungry eagle from way back here. How many times have you actually looked into his eyes and talked to him?”

Anger fizzes in his gut. He needs to leave before it reaches his tongue.

“I’m going,” Viktor announces with finality. “You can stay here and live your lies, pretending you’re a slow learner or…” Viktor trails off before he curses the gods. Waving a hand in dismissal, he tries to get away.

Yura still continues to yap at him, even with his back turned. He shouts to be heard across the space growing between them.

“Lying for you,” he says like it’s a correction. “If you were ever around you would know this. You’re frustrating and… dense!” Yuri sounds like he’s cracked, suddenly more frustrated and aggressive then before.

Viktor looks behind him and mirrors Yura’s daggers. He speaks far softer than Yura did, knowing he has the youngling’s full attention.

“I can smell it on you – how desperately you’re trying to be an alpha for him. You’ll never be one. I am, and this is my territory. So stay in you place.”

He doesn’t mean it. But he does.  Viktor turns and walks away before the urge grows any larger.

Yura rolls his eyes and hisses.

“Disappearing again? I’m sure that’s sending a real good message to Katsuki about how much you value the kind donation of his time to heal your young charge who he maimed in the first place!”

The rage is on his lips before he has time to stop. It’s even across the back of his throat. A coating of something peppery and glossy between his teeth. Viktor pivots around, his entire body feeling heated and dark. Straightening to his full height, the sight of Yuri dropping his hands and taking an unsure step back doesn’t even appease him.

“I’ve faced the facts. He’s not here for me – detests my presence, flat out. He doesn’t mind pitying you though, with all you broken legs and missing lungs.”

“Well sorry I actually,” Yuri trips over his words and takes an ungraceful breath, “followed through on the plan, while all you did was stare like he was gonna disappearing like a fire-dream.”

If Viktor had been paying attention, he would have noticed Yuri’s voice sounded more like the youngling he was, on the verge of tears while trying to defend himself against a parent’s scolding. “One ‘no thanks’ and you curl up like a puppy dog? What sort of alpha are _you?_ ” Yura’s fists ball up. “And I actually did get hurt falling down those rocks. It wasn’t a lie.”

Viktor scoffs and marches into the trees, the loose fabric of his tunic billowing from the violent movements.

They are now too far apart to be sure the other can hear. Viktor decides to yell out into the void before him.

“Oh, cry water for my crops while you’re at it!”

“What crops? You think farming’s stupid!”

Yuri’s answering scream disturbs a flock of blue thrushes.

_Stupid bloody youngling. Fooling. See what he does if I tell him to find his own food. Not so smart now, are you? Whatever happened to respect. Not that I’m old – but I’m older than him._

Viktor treks in a vaguely southern direction, slowly calming down, step by step.

“Must he do everything the hard way?” Viktor slaps a green branch out of his face instead of ducking under it. “When I tell him to brush his hair, what does he do? When I tell him it’s too early to hunt the deer, what does he do? When I tell him to leave Katsuki be, what does he do?”

If this is what raising younglings is like, Viktor is glad he’s never desired his own.

Eventually, the coolness of nature settles completely over him. It hits him while he’s passing through a patch of pear trees, their bodies turned white with flowers.

Crouching down and squeezing his eyes shut, Viktor listens to his own heartbeat and breathes. Peace fucking peace.

Leaves rustle above him. Insects click in the wood. Bees flower hop above his head. Viktor opens his eyes and looks down at his feet, trying to notice everything there. The soil is moist from yesterday’s rain, young delicate plants are growing under the shelter of tougher grasses - the ones that burst through the melting snow. First springers.

Viktor sinks his hands into the earth. _My land_ , he remembers. _Mine to protect._

Omegas come and go, but this will be the land he dies on. Dies for.

Between his fingers, a spider plucks at the foundations of a web. She is no bigger than a grain, a silent artisan.

Viktor wonders what on earth she catches in that web, sand flies and ants, gnats and bugs so tiny they are invisible, only seen when the light of a sunset catches in their wings. Perhaps. Her entire world is small enough to fit under the shadow of one tree.

With one last long breathe, the red-hot coils in his chest are plunged in a pure-water creek of wild calmness. Damp dirt and sweet wind and animal musk.

He walks on, this time cutting a better line through the woods – and later the fields – south. Sometimes he’ll drift off course, drawn by some force that gnaws at the back of his head. It feels like he should go back. He’s missed something. Something’s wrong. He’s in the wrong place.

But he’s not missing anything. He’s checked a thousand times since the feeling started yesterday. Nothing’s wrong. There is no place to go.

Viktor distracts himself by following new game trials appearing in the undergrowth. The allure of learning what routes the animals are putting in place too strong to ignore. He finds the closer he gets to his outer-territories the easier he can breathe.

Birds sing in the branches, strong and lustful. Deer graze untroubled, knee-high in grasses they spent all winter digging for.

It’s nice to know the creatures are happy. Burrows filled with the smell of newborns and milk. Herds, where mothers have come together to show off their calves.

Not like his burrow. No, his was a place of strict boundaries.  His den-site and, beside it, another. A new little foreign territory, ruled by a cocky young invader.

Before spring, the idea of Yuri building his own shelter had been a good one. Viktor had encourage it. It was his hands which placed the first branch between the tree forks and showed Yura how to pack the timber in tight enough to keep out the rain.

When Yura completed it, Viktor had been proud. He remembers the praise he had for it.

It had all be fine, a way to get the youngling out of his own den. For peace and quiet. For anticipation that Viktor might have a guest in spring. The leaning wreck, across the field, hadn’t felt like a foreign presence when Yura started living out of it. He still came to sleep in the den when it was cold, and ate his meals before the hearth with Viktor.

He should have left it as that crumbling stack of timber the youngling first constructed.

Smaller and colder as it is, Katsuki prefers Yura’s den. Seemingly content with an unsafe shelter stacked amongst four birch trees. He doesn’t even look at Viktor’s.

When it rains, Viktor glares at the ceiling and thinks _if only I hadn’t made it water-tight._

Now Yura resides over there in a poor imitation of an alpha. He needs Viktor’s furs and pillows. He needs food from Viktor’s stores. He needs Katsuki to watch over him, tending to him as Yuri lies there ‘healing’ like a lazy rat, too fat to move after eating all her young in a fit of stress.

The worst part was how Katsuki played along. The fake omega for the fake alpha in his fake territory.

It was strange, to suffer heart-break when the object of love was still so close. To be jealous of someone you knew couldn’t best you in anything.

It makes him angry – no, it makes him sad – no, it makes him anxious. Anxious to find any excuse to not be there with the omegas. Anything went, as long as it got Viktor away from Katsuki.

He stomps around his territory, discovering hidden meadows and creeks he didn’t know about. Days and days, nights and nights, he spends traversing in circles at the far-reaches of his home, trying to convince himself Katsuki wasn’t that special, he was just some omega, there would be others, better than Katsuki, with an actual interest in Viktor.

Every time he returns, at dawn or dust or midnight, and Katsuki is always there. Sitting just inside the entrance of Yura’s shelter, either staring into the fire or out across the lake. Sitting right where he should be. Protecting the youngling, as if he refuses to sleep without Viktor home.

And every time he looks so devastatingly soft and beautiful, undoing all the hard work done in the wilderness.

Today was worse than usual. As soon as the sun rose, he’s felt itchy and restless.

Viktor stops.

There is a misplaced smell in the air.

Rotting things and dragon-fly spawn. Slimy water and grey mud. Frog carcasses.

He knows that smell, no matter how faint. And it’s truly faint – a single pollen mote lost on the wind.

The bog is too far away. He shouldn’t be able to smell it. The unclaimed and ungodly stretch of land rests _beyond_ Viktor’s southern border. The edge of it acting _as_ his southern border.

It’s nothing but hound-swallowing mud pools and pond weeds. The best way to cross is by canoe, and even then progress is slow up thin runnels. It was hardly worth crossing. Or going near.

He knows what the bog’s smells like disturbed. It’s seared into his mind alongside the trauma.

Last time he went through the bog, Makkachin jumped from the canoe. Ancestor’s know what she was after, storks or tadpoles or rustling flowers.

He’d only had her for seven days. She was a pup.

Ever since picking her up from Georgi, he’d lived in a state of terror those seven days. Convinced he’d lose her or accidently kill her. She was so small, and he had never cared for anything like her before.

And there she was on the seventh day. Sinking from view into mud and tangled weeds, brown coat turning her invisible under the surface.

He didn’t want to canoe back out the bog and into wide corridor of water. He didn’t want to travel up the mighty River of Amur again. He didn’t want to pick a second pup from the litters. The shame would be too much. The guilt, too.

The scenario was so clear. Georgi would thread his fingers together and try not to look smug, saying something like _I warned you – that one’s for camp guarding. Alpha dogs are always a bit too… stupid… for the wilds up there with you._ Then he’ll throw his hands into the air, becoming more loudly dramatic than the five howling dogs bounding around his feet. _But someone just had to ignore all my beautiful - may I deeply express how beautiful - beta hunters and go straight for the weird one._

He would be too distraught to ever go back. To ever keep a hound again.

Then she went and jumped off the canoe before he even got her home.

Never in his life will he feel more relief, than to haul that creature above his shoulders by the skin of her neck, whining loudly about the situation as a rivers-worth of strangling weed rose up with her.

Years later, he’s smelling the disturbed waters again.

Some creature has crawled through the bog and tracked into Viktor’s territory.

This creature isn’t exactly curiously following the border either. They are cutting a path directly for the centre. Towards him. Viktor follows it along the wind, suddenly excited, his heart beating with something that could be mistaken for joy. A moose?

As colour starts to paint the sky, Viktor finds the creature’s tracks. In a gully tiny ferns have been crunched by human feet. Mice ferns, he calls them.

Viktor draws his knife and continues in absolute silence.

The sharp stone feels so terribly heavy and deadly hanging in his hand.

No one’s ever encroached on him in spring. It didn’t make sense to fight when everything was so plentiful. What did they want? Was the game yet to return in full elsewhere? Where the berries not in abundance? Had the game not bred itself two-fold?

It’s been so long since someone challenged his boundaries. Years since someone so physically and blatantly dared.

Viktor stops short.

That he knows of. _That he knows of_. A winter ago he would have assumed the entire territory his domain, his control over it absolute, but then Katsuki…

Katsuki, who would have slipped straight by Viktor if Makkachin hadn’t gone ahead with Yura. Yura, who in turn walked them in increasingly off-course circles. If he couldn’t sense Katsuki then, at such an empty and clean time of the year, then who else has he failed to notice, too confident in his own ability?

He didn’t even noticed an omega was nesting on his territory.

Not trespassing, not passing through. Living and sleeping and staying.

If the elk hadn’t drawn him up that snowy mountain, would he had ever know?

Maybe that’s part of the reason he stalks the land so restlessly now. A feel of missing something has taken root in his bones. Full of oversight and inadequacy.

Viktor relaxes his white-knuckled hold on the blade and prowls onwards. He knows he’s close when he can hear them.

They’re splashing in water. Viktor slows his breathing and takes a knee to the ground, peering through the vegetation.

Creeping foot by foot, he comes up a ridge and looks down the other side. Six deer-lengths away, across a lichen covered ground, squats a female by a pool of rain-water.

She’s stripped off everything but her headdress. Her back is to him, but her face is turned towards, as she tries to scrub dried mud off her spine.

Her sole item of clothing draws his attention like a candle flame. He feels it’s trying to tell him something. A status symbol he doesn’t know how to de-code.

The grey fabric looks thick, enough to muffle a blow. Stitches in red thread decorate it with vaguely recognisable symbols. Bears, or maybe dogs? Kneeling humans?

It covers her ears and falls low to her shoulders. Hanging on the sides are heavy teardrop pendants. Four on each side.

At first they look like stone, but when she leans to wash mud off her stomach they shimmer. Metal.

Viktor is immediately on guard.

She is younger than him, and Viktor is of an age where he’s unsure if that’s a good thing anymore.

Her abandoned attire lies in a heap off to the side, filthy with mud from the marshes. The sight of fine clothes so soiled makes him grimace.

There are no obvious scars on her skin, and she didn’t seem to have any battle weapons.

She hardly looked like a warrior, and if she was, then she was possibly a bad one.

The woman shifts in her bathing, sitting down to wash her legs. The new angle gives a better view of her body. Her breasts are small curves and the skin across her hips is unpatterned with silver lines.

A body untouched by motherhood.

Thick hair accentuates her forearms and knees. There is a coating of it up the centre of her stomach, not unlike him.

The more she cleaned herself, and the move she shifted and Viktor watched, he came to realise – this was an alpha.

A female alpha with no younglings to count her own, travelling across difficult terrain in spring.

Oh. Viktor felt like a fool.

She wasn’t after land.

She was after something he happened to have two of.

He should have anticipated this. Of course a territory with two unmated omegas was going to attract more attention. It explains why she’s headed directly for the centre.

For a second, Viktor doesn’t know what to do. All his life alpha’s have come to try their luck at stealing the lands. So many young alphas sneaking their way in, expecting to catch an old alpha by surprise.

Usually he finds them first. Usually it works. When they’ve lost the element of surprise and see the size of him.

Quietly Viktor re-laces his felt footings, making sure his feet are tight and centred in the shoes. Once done, he stands up tall and goes forward with purposefully heavy footsteps.

The foreign alpha does not startle in surprise. She continues scooping water over her bent knee.

“Finally,” she grunts, adjusting to the balls of her feet.

A misjudgement. She had sensed him. The mistake thrills Viktor’s nerves to a razor edge.

“I can smell the omegas all over you. Has anyone taught you the virtue of sharing?”

That was… a clear statement.

Her hand goes into the water. She is studying him, cautious in her movements. He studies her back, slowly circling around to her heaped clothes. Usually he would make some threats, but he’s interested to know what more she might say.

It’s all very new to him. This.

Her hand goes under the surface, sinking deeper and deeper.

Viktor pauses.

When her hand pulls back, clutched in it is the hilt of a machete.

It’s honed and thin. If she swung at the rock behind her, it might just bend.

With the honed machete hanging in her hand, she stands up.

The trespasser is tall. Maybe taller than him. She is strong and broad. In the back of his mind Viktor thinks… maybe stronger than him?

A growls rips from his throat.

“This is mine,” he warns, trying to stand even taller. “Put your machete down and leave.”

A disbelieving snort fills the heavy air between them.

“I knew northerners kept to themselves but this…” she smiles, all teeth, then lifts the honed machete up and runs a finger along its flat surface. “A sword,” she tells him.

“Sword,” Viktor spits the unfamiliar word out. “A fancy machete that will snap in two.”

Her eyes narrow, and the long weapon slowly slices through the air to point at him.

“This cannot break. This is bronze.”

Bronze. Another foreign word. Viktor dose not bother trying to say it back.

“I will snap it in two over your body, stranger.”

The smile slips off her face.

“I am Jiangnu, Shang warrior. Born along the Huang He. Surrender your territory and possessions to me, northern man.”

Viktor circles, putting his back to the sun. His watches her feet and her face from each eye, emotionless and quiet.

She moves. The sword hefts up and points at his collar. Viktor takes three steps back, watching how she walks and holds the sword. It’s loosely clasped in one hand, and she draws large circles with the point of it in the air every time he shifts. It twirls fast, curling through the air between them, with hardly a muscle wasted in the effort on her part.

It’s not like a spear, other than being long like one. He wants to take it. Mirror her movements and see how light it truly is, how deep it can slice.

She runs forward, the weapon angled across her body. He pretends to throw his knife at her shins before darting across the clearing. The intruder jumps and side-steps, before circling around, rearranging her sword and charging again with a cry.

She isn’t giving much away. Now he steps behind a twin pair of trees, growing out of a depression filled with black water. His hand rests against a mossy trunk while he watches her circle around.

This time she goes carefully, every step tested. Here the ground’s uneven, and littered with fallen branches. Exposed rock is covered with a film of green slime.

“Hiding. Lesser.” She spits on the ground and stops walking. The large alpha female lowers the sword until it was resting along her leg. Cocking a hip out, she watches from outside the tree shadows.

Her bare body is still beaded with water, and goose-bumps trace her sides. There are little identical tattoos inked above her dark nipples.

“It’s not my responsibility to die,” he says back. He will not die. Katsuki would be fine, but Yuri will struggle if she succeeds here.

The idea of how Katsuki would react to her makes his scalp burn. Katsuki would know Viktor was a failure. A weakling. Katsuki might accept her.

Viktor’s stomach feels like it’s been scrapped out. His nostrils flares.

The alpha female draws in a deep breathe, and raises her free hand to angrily rub against her own glands. Oil is weeping from them. Shiny trails slowly rolling down her neck and collecting against her collar bone before evaporating.

She runs her hands through the gathering oil and smears it out across her breasts and arms. The scent of bog on her is making way for her natural musk.

Adrenaline is sweating his scent out too. Unlike her, his clothing traps it from the air. It’s running down his chest. He can feel it, just a bit, sliding as he breathes.

The tonic scent of her is aggressive and suffocating.

Goats and clay. Dried grain and yellow mould underneath rocks. There is always a good half and a bad half to an alpha’s scent. Viktor wonders what his is. Yakov once said he smelt like rotten tree roots.

Yakov smells like spoiled wool and Lydia’s mulled stews. Lydia smells like clotted blood and Yakov’s smoking pipe.

Alpha’s smell like their territories. This stranger did not smell like the wilds. She smelt like a village full of trade and corralled beasts.

The sun dips under the pine tops.

“You don’t belong out here,” cold winds sneak between gaps in the forest. Birds announce themselves to the dusk.

“There are riches in the cold places,” was all she said. “Green gold, fat fish, alphas who’ve forgotten how to fight.” Her feet are still covered in mud and leaves from the swamp.

Viktor bends down and picks up a fallen branch. It’s not straight, but it’s long and dense enough. In the back of his belt he tucks the knife.

He steps out from the trees.

The village alpha levels her sword with his chin once more.

“You will not defeat me,” neither of them goes forward. “Surrender the land and omegas.”

She is exhausted from the swim across the marshes. It’s coming cold, and she is wet without any clothing. The sword is heavy enough she dared to put it down and rest her arm while waiting.

Normally he would have lunged by now, but he wants to see. See how the Shang warrior wields the bronze sword.

“The omegas are too young and too old each,” _lies,_ “the land is too wild for you. Best leave, young one, before the daemon’s smell you during the night.”

“Daemons,” she plucks at the unknown word like a string.

“Disfigured corpses who rule the unknown regions. Dark ones live under the mountains here, in caves that reach the centre of the earth. You should be careful.”

She shows no reaction. Viktor knows he’s got her.

He lowers his branch and walks forward.

“Once you crossed the great river, you left the blessed lands. There are no holy totems on the roads here. There are no roads. True, I haven’t fought another alpha in a long time – but I killed a downer beast from the lake when the ice cracked.” _Lies._

Her handsome brows furrow by the tiniest twitch.

“You haven’t been in a civilised land for a long time, have you elder? _Mogwai_ are just animals, killable like any other,” she twists her sword and lifts it. Her eyes flicker, tracing the carvings along it. “Bronze. Being near it makes their skin smoke and burn. It pains them to look upon it.”

Viktor doesn’t stop to admire with her. He lunges, swinging the branch at the sharp edge of the sword. The two connect with a solid _thunk_ , the sword buries into the wood, and almost slices clean through it.

Shit, he thinks.

The Shang warrior jumps back, trying to bring the sword with her, but it’s snagged in the word. Before she can pull it loose, Viktor twists the branch.

The sword jerks out of her tight hold effortlessly.

Now plus branch with sword attached, Viktor flings them as far as he can to the side. They flip handle over point, and curve, before landing flat in taller grasses.

She dives elbow first for his sternum, her skull cracking into his jaw as she goes. Viktor steps back, trying to run out of her space, to put enough distance to punch her heavily.

She knees him in the thigh. The muscle clenches in shock from the force of the blow. Internally his adrenaline spikes like a whip crack.

With his opponent on one foot. Viktor grabs her and twists, making himself dead weight and forcing them both to the ground. Something – her shoulder? – wacks him across the ear hard enough to snap his head back mid-fall.

A pained snarl rips out of her upon impact with the ground.

With no other hold onto her beside the fact he’s lying on top, she seizes the opportunity to grab his long hair and pull. Viktor growls and peels back his lips as his head is forced downwards. An arm wraps around the back of his neck and locks in place.

Viktor reaches back behind him, feeling around for the knife.

In the same movement, she rolls and wildly punches at his skull. The impacts are strong. His head starts to ring, and his mind starts to fade into instinct. He can’t breathe, forced up against her skin. She’s rolled on top and she’s heavy. His arm is trapped under his own body, but his crushed fingers have brushed stone.

He bites down on the skin suffocating him. The Shang warrior starts punching harder. His mouth fills with blood. He can’t breathe. She doesn’t flinch. She wants him to pass out.

Arranging his legs, Viktor twists with the strength of his torso. His finger find the handle of his knife. They go rolling again, over and over rapidly until she gets back on top of him. In that time he managed to grab the knife.

Quickly he burrows his stone weapon between her ribs. It dose not go neatly. It forces her skin open like a splinter of wood.

Howling in pain, she releases his head. The female’s hands fly down to grab the knife handle and claw at his wrists. She opens up a vein with nails that have been filed into sharp points and coated with some sort of glittering hard paint.

She’s good. She’s strong. She’s _smart._

She claws him across the face.

They fight, blow for blow, elbows clashing with one another’s faces. Slowly, he’s getting the upper hand. She was exhausted as he suspected.

Viktor feels like a bird, flying from the cage it was born inside.

Ah.

This explains the last two days.

The constant anger settles in his body. Suddenly, it’s made a home there, accepted into his blood stream with relish.

On the knife he keeps his hand and leans his weight. She’s trying to pull it out and use it against him - _on your throat_ , she hisses – Viktor pulls back on it to saw at her flesh, but finds the stone is caught under a rib bone.

They are both slippery with one another’s blood. Her thrashing becomes weaker, and his vision is becoming darkened at the edges. His guts feel cold. Along the spine, his skin tingles.

The female alpha stops, going still on top of him. She slumps to the side, and lays against the ground with a rattling breathe.

“I’ll kill you,” she rasps.

Viktor rolls away from her, then stops. He stares up at the night sky and realises he can’t see the branches of the trees, or the stars in the sky. There is a hazy white orb where the moon is, but he can’t make out its phase.

Time blurs at the edges. A warning his rut is coming in faster than ever before. Viktor looks down at the body now slayed before him. Her chest has been ripped over. Viktor’s knife, barely recognisable under the blood, buries deep through her body and into the spine.

Viktor looks down at his wrist, and realises his entire arm is smeared dark red with blood. He can feel blood running down his cheek.

“Fucking Hrayll,” his voice is rough and weak. He has to wipe his own blood off his lips and teeth. He goes to curse again, but nothing comes out.

That’s the last thing he remembers until he’s before the fire.

It’s crackling like mad. As if someone’s just added new wood. Maybe him? The hearth looks familiar.

He’s hunched over on a stool, with a wet rag dangling from one limp hand. Between his knees is a pot of water. His pot of water, which he keeps in the den.

Every muscle hurts as he slowly dips his hand into the water.

Freezing. He forgot to warm it. Viktor notices now that one arm is cold. He twists it and looks, and sees the dried blood there is smeared. The gashes down his wrist tingles in disappearing pain.

If he wasn’t high on rut pheromones right now, the open flesh being washed would probably burn more than the fire before him. That must have been what snapped him awake – cold water hitting his wounds.

Slowly, Viktor resumes what he was doing before gaining thought back.

The blood is not too bad, now that he’s free of clothing. Just his hands, and his arms, and his face. A few trials of it have run down his chest. When his weak arm goes to wipe those off, it slips across his skin like it is ice.

The oil is still there.

He’s too tired for this. Too sore. Too exhausted. The wounds are clear, that’ll do till morning.

Viktor lifts his eyes to his bed.

Two eyes stare back, gleaming in the firelight.

Viktor stares back, his mind the slowest it’s ever been.

Another intruder? One which followed him home, searched the den for omegas only to find it empty. _Empty. Useless._ Now they wait to ambush his sleeping form.

Viktor hauls himself to his feet. Stepping more firmly and powerfully than he thought possible around the hearth.

He’ll kill them. He’ll never give them the chance. He’ll rise from the dead to protect the two sleeping vulnerable and unprotecting in that _stupid_ shelter across the field.

The walls bounce his growls back, doubling the sound. The intruder doesn’t move.

Frozen in fear, they’d better be. Think he hasn’t seen them? They’d better not.

The flood in aggression collapses his consciousness. He’s aware of holding someone down, aware of how possessive he feels. A vulnerable shout snaps his eyes back open, like a pack mate screaming in hurt.

His eyes meet with a tan expanse of skin, twisting beneath him. His teeth bleed in their desire to bite harder on the soft meat he’s hungrily kissing.

Viktor jerks back, stunned.

The nude body before him reveals itself, only visible where the fire-light traces it. Viktor’s nose fills with an omega disturbed, like he dug this sleeping creature up from the ground and shook the dirt from its roots. It’s been so long since he smelt it. It feels like rain pouring down on drought ravaged earth.

Their head and arms are trapped in a pulled up garment. Viktor wants to know. He grabs at the garment’s ends and tugs it up, heart so high he can’t breathe past it, wanting to see dark hair and brown eyes.

When dark hair and brown eyes and blushed cheeks and wet lips greet him, Viktor doesn’t know what to do.

It feels like he walked in on Katsuki with someone else. What were the two getting up to? How far were they going? Was the omega into it or going along passively?

He was…

Katsuki arches his body up and exposes his neck, red and almost bruised from someone else.

No, from him. _Katsuki_ let _him_ do _that._

Viktor’s pulse spikes, and rut buzzes in his ears, covering up all sound. He only has a few moments until consciousness dissolves again. He has to know what the omega was getting up to. Now.

There was one easy way to find out. As quick and rough as he dared, Viktor flipped the displaying omega onto his stomach. Viktor pushed his body down along the other man’s back, trying to signal clearly the ravaging intentions. He bit possessively down on Yuuri’s shoulder, tightening his jaw when the omega tried to squirm away.

Viktor let a hand push between Katsuki’s shoulder blades. A thrill went straight to his cock as he pushed the omega’s face into the bedding. Hungrily his drew his hand down the spine, using his nails just enough to leave red marks.

Muscles stiffened like wooden planks under his touch. Viktor holds his hand in place on the small of the man’s back, waiting with his toes peeking over the edge of a cliff.

Viktor desperately talks himself out of brushing the head of his cock against the omega’s opening. It wasn’t necessary. It would be too far. Cruel. The omega didn’t need to know he was lined up perfectly, a thrust away from claimed him, hovering just so.

Viktor leans his head against the nape of Katsuki’s neck.

Katsuki’ scent has gone weak and acidic.

_Ah, there’s the line._

Viktor rolls himself away, oddly feeling a rush of relief as the space grows. He rolls again, trying to get away from the burning scent of arousal gone scared. Getting away from this terrible screaming and cramping in his body.

It’s like there is a wall in his mind, punishing him when he thinks about going beyond it.

Well at least he knows. Whatever is going – will go on, while he’s asleep in mind only – it won’t be that.

Viktor lays there, breathing heavy at the low ceiling, trying to sigh the strange resisting pain out of his body through his lungs alone.

Katsuki makes a sound. Viktor could never name it, not even if he had ten thousand days to think of a description. He turns his face to the side to watch, and feels the wall dry up like fired clay across his chest.

The smell of the burrow starts to sweeten again as Katsuki relaxes. Crumbles start to tickle at Viktor’s sides, where the solid weight of the wall almost presses against him.

 _Fuck me dead._ Viktor thinks as Katsuki stares back at him, looking like he knows perfectly well that Viktor is incapacitated. A young buck in his first rut, running into the middle of a hunting camp because a tame does was tethered to a tent. Blind. Deaf. Pliant to the arrows. About to run his chest into a spear and do the dogs a favour.

It surprises Viktor in its terribleness. Like swallowing a mouth fall of food too big. He has to concentrate to make sense of it and push the pain past.

He doesn’t want to not know. He wants to be there for everything – see everything, hear everything, worship everything. Jealousy aggressively growls out of his body, but it’s at _himself._ He’s jealous of his own hands.

Viktor gets up just as the rut starts to hit and make him heavy-lidded. There is definitely some stumbling this time, as he goes back to the stool by the fire.

The last thing he remembers is picking the washing cloth back out of the basin, concentrating on the sound of pouring water like it was the last sounds of home, about to be spoken for the last time, by someone breathing their last.

He breathes through it, and knows he’s beaten it.

-


End file.
